This Spring Festival, Let Paper-Cutting Bring Your Wandering Heart Home: When Millennia-Old Heritage Meets 3D Printing Technology
Living alone in a foreign land, one misses family doubly during festivals. When the New Year goods in supermarkets feel unfamiliar, and "celebrating the New Year" is reduced to the Spring Festival Gala on a screen, how do we soothe that longing for the familiar festive atmosphere of home? This year, let's use a ritual at our fingertips to bring "home" closer, experiencing a deep dialogue between a millennia-old intangible cultural heritage craft and the future technology of 3D printing.
A Resonance Across Millennia: A Dialogue Through Time Between Paper-Cutting and 3D Printing
Paper-cutting, the interplay of scissors and red paper, is the most familiar memory of "New Year atmosphere" for Chinese people. 3D printing, constructing the future layer by layer, is a shining light of contemporary technology. Though seemingly a millennium apart, they share striking similarities in the mathematical logic of "hollowed-out art" and "layered construction."
Digital Rebirth of a Traditional Craft
Beijing-style paper-cutting emphasizes "every cut connected, flowing continuously," with its essence lying in the ultimate use of "negative space"—this aligns perfectly with the topology optimization algorithms in 3D printing. Both achieve the unity of art and function through precise "emptying" while ensuring structural integrity. In this course, Teacher Zhang Lijun will, for the first time, reveal how she integrates 3D printing technology with paper-cutting innovation to design stunning wedding collection paper-cutting earrings, breathing three-dimensional life into ancient patterns.
Chinese Codes Within the Patterns: Every Cut Echoes Culture
Paper-cutting is never just a pattern; it is a cultural river flowing for thousands of years, "a wordless history book, a tangible philosophy." This course features a special Cultural Decoding Segment, where Teacher Zhang Lijun will guide you to a deeper understanding of:
Fish Leaping Over the Dragon Gate: Symbolizes not only abundance year after year but also implies the striving spirit of "swimming against the current."
Pomegranate with Many Seeds: A pattern cherished by overseas Chinese, where each seed represents hope for family continuity; every cut carries nostalgia.
Endless Knot: Represents continuous, never-ending wisdom, conveying the message for wanderers that "roots remain unbroken, affection lasts forever."
Inheritor Zhang Lijun: Connecting Tradition and Future with a Pair of Scissors
Zhang Lijun, a fourth-generation inheritor of the intangible cultural heritage of Beijing-style paper-cutting, comes from a family of paper-cutting artists and is skilled in paper-cutting, calligraphy, and painting. In her studio, one side displays her great-grandmother's "Dragon and Phoenix Bring Prosperity" from 80 years ago, while the other showcases her luminous paper-cutting installations created for metaverse exhibitions. Her innovative practice perfectly embodies "guarding the essence of tradition, creating the novelty of our times":
Three Breakthroughs in Empowering Heritage with Technology:
Precision Revolution: Integrating 3D printing technology into creation, achieving microscopic details of 0.1mm difficult to accomplish by hand.
Material Innovation: Expanding from paper to PLA eco-friendly materials, transparent resin, bringing paper-cutting into modern life.
Interactive Enhancement: Developing AR applications for paper-cutting, where scanning traditional patterns triggers dynamic animations.
Her work "Super Moon" was presented by Lei Jun, CEO of Xiaomi Group, to the internationally renowned director James Cameron; "Dragon Vein" is permanently collected by the Beijing Central Axis Foundation. Now, she will bring this art form that blends tradition and technology directly into your overseas home through this online course.
Why is This Paper-Cutting Course, Integrating 3D Printing Concepts, Worth Your Anticipation?
We understand you are overseas, so everything is thoughtfully designed for you:
✅ Live Instruction from a Master, Authentic and Original: Learn directly from Teacher Zhang Lijun via livestream. Hear the most familiar accent and learn the most authentic Beijing-style techniques, while discovering how she integrates 3D printing thinking into paper-cutting innovation.
✅ No Prior Experience? No Problem at All!: The course starts from how to hold scissors, guiding you step-by-step to complete your work. We aim not for you to become a "master," but for you to enjoy the process.
✅ Complete Materials, Easy Home Operation: We provide a complete paper-cutting toolkit, materials, and templates. Through online guidance, we ensure you can create a finished product during the session.
✅ Learn and Receive: A Dual Intangible Cultural Heritage Experience: The material pack includes an additional experiential kit for another intangible cultural heritage craft, complete with illustrated instructions and video tutorials, allowing you to experience different heritage techniques using the same paper-cutting patterns.
✅ Cross Time Zones, Supported with Replay: If the live time is inconvenient, you can watch the replay to learn and review any details you might miss.
✅ Complete Your Own Auspicious Artwork: By the end of the course, you will hold your own hand-cut auspicious pattern, bringing luck for the New Year!
A Deeply Engaging Experience Specially Designed for Overseas Chinese
We understand that for overseas Chinese:
The Spring Festival is not just a holiday; it is an affirmation of cultural identity.
Parent-child activities are not just entertainment; they are a transmission of cultural heritage.
Paper-cutting is not just a craft; it is a vessel for emotional expression.
Therefore, we have specially incorporated:
A Technology-Empowered Perspective: Understand the shared "layered construction" thinking between paper-cutting and 3D printing, sensing the future possibilities of traditional crafts.
An Emotional Guidance Module: Helps parents explain the ethnic and family stories behind the patterns to their children.
Inspiration for Cross-Disciplinary Creation: Traditional techniques + modern technological thinking, ensuring cultural transmission remains dynamic, not rigid.
A Spring Festival Invitation from Your Homeland
Event Theme: "Cutting Through Nostalgia: Intangible Cultural Heritage Paper-Cutting Online Experience Class" — Welcome an Auspicious Chinese New Year with Teacher Zhang Lijun.
Special Highlight: Uncover the technological resonance between paper-cutting and 3D printing, and experience the future potential of traditional crafts.
Event Time: Beijing Time, February 15th, 12:00 PM (corresponding to Los Angeles Time, USA: February 14th, 8:00 PM).
Event Format: Online Livestream + Group Q&A + Permanent Replay Access.
Suitable For: All overseas compatriots and families who miss their homeland and love traditional Chinese culture.
Registration: Click the link below to secure your spot for this special "Spring Festival Emotional New Year Goods."
Organizers: Chengwu She & SCRAT3D
Spots are limited. Let this fingertip ritual, blending millennia of wisdom with future technology, become your warmest memory this Spring Festival.
This New Year, let's use a pair of scissors to cut through the distance of time and space; use an understanding of the resonance between technology and tradition to connect the past and the future. Cut a piece of red paper to embody our shared nostalgia; learn a way of thinking to see the infinite possibilities of intangible cultural heritage.
We await your "homecoming" in the classroom.
Personalized feedback from Teacher Zhang Lijun is available after the course.
This Spring Festival, let's take red paper as our boat and scissors as our oars, carrying our wandering hearts across the Pacific Ocean. Find cultural roots in the rhythm of the scissors, store memories of love in the time spent cutting paper with family, and inspire innovative thinking in the dialogue between tradition and technology. Spots are limited. Sign up now to embark on a journey of cultural discovery and future exploration across time and space!
