Kang Ning and the Cultural Crisis of Shu Embroidery

   

    In a studio in Yuzhong District, southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, Kang Ning stitches and threads silk patiently. At around 72 years of age, she is only one of the two nationally recognized inheritors of Shu embroidery, a 2,000-year-old art form known for its luminous silk threads, nature-inspired motifs, and flat yet lifelike 3D characteristics.

Ms. Kang Ning, Herself

    Kang Ning began her journey at 23, mastering the generations-old techniques. As time went on, not only did she master the preservation of the art, but she also innovated, with her signature technique that allows her to embroider two different shapes and colors on both sides of the silk simultaneously, each side remaining distinct and undisturbed, as if it were created separately.

    Kang Ning's creative process is slow, deliberate, and deeply embodied. It requires a clear image of the object being embroidered, a highly regulated count of threads, colors, and how they interact in order to produce a near-lifelike image, or an image that looks like a painting, with near-invisible threads fusing together to produce a seamless representation of the desired image. Most importantly, this process is silent. It requires a deep understanding of all variables: thread, color, object, light, and the hours and hours of deep, intimate threading that bonds the creator and art in a meditative and reverent way.

    This can be seen in any one of her works, none of which are titled with exhibition or sale in mind, but with the objects of her embroidery being clearly pictured, we can refer to them by the objects themselves. She has various works of women in various positions, animals, and flowers, but I will only show a few of them here. 

A cat, embroidered by Ms.Kang Ning

    Shu Embroidery, once a royal tribute and a powerful symbol of Sichuan's cultural soul, now stands at the cusp of extinction. This decline is not a matter of economics or trends but is symptomatic of what Makoto Fujimura calls “the fragmentation and reductionism operating in culture today,” which release two corrosive forces into the river of culture: “overcommodification of art and utilitarian pragmatism.”

A piece of double-faced embroidery of a woman made by Ms. Kang Ning - back not found

An example of Ms. Kang Ning's famous technique - a peacock on one side, a tiger on the other

    This is a stark contrast to Ms. Kang Ning's process. Overcommodification has turned Shu embroidery into a novelty item, commodifying culture as a trendy yet hypocritically “cultured” product that allows people to say that they appreciate history and its significance, but ultimately possess a derivative mockery of a two-thousand-year-old art form. Mass-produced knockoffs mimic the aesthetic but erase the soul. This begs the question in the age of technology: Why spend months on a silk panel when a machine can do it in minutes? It entirely devalues the opportunity cost of the practice: the slowness, silence, reverence, and years of knowledge and tradition that the artist shoulders.

                            A double-sided embroidery work of Ms.Kang Ning (photo from the Yuzhong Cultural and Tourism Development Committee)

    Kang Ning’s embroidery is more than just a technical achievement. It's a philosophical stance. Each silk thread holds a story. She refuses to simplify, accelerate, or commercialize her work, picking up apprentices in hopes of spreading the tradition, slowly but surely. Not in an attempt to replicate her special techniques, but for them to embody her philosophy: her art is not a tool to make money but is a way of living. 

Ms.Kang Ning (R) instructs an apprentice in making Shu embroidery artwork at her workshop in Yuzhong District, southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, May 14, 2023. 

Facts and Images obtained from: Xinhuanet news, culturalchina.com, and China News