Dongjo Yoo, a renowned installation artist, focuses primarily on environmental projects, specifically projects related to water. His most notable work is the Water Performance Installation Project, an eleven-year project starting from 2014, involving eleven lakes and rivers in ten countries. Under the motto of “there is no ‘water’ in the presence of water, and there is ‘water’ in the absence of water,” the project has been a large success. To highlight the importance of the environment, Mr. Yoo is looking forward to expanding his project to areas along the Silk Roads where water is a scarce and valuable resource.

The people inhabiting the present territory of Uzbekistan have their rich folklore, like any other nation on the earth. Dastans are special among the genres of folklore epics in terms of volume and variety of the means of expression. Like other major genres of folk art, they arise on the basis of archaic folklore and ancient national history and incorporate both ancient cultural traditions and the memory of the formation of the people, their spiritual world and historical destinies, their civil, moral and aesthetic ideals. Dastan (in Persian داستان), means ‘story’. It is the epic folklore and literature of the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Dastans are either folklore or literary interpretations of heroic myths, legends and fairy stories.

Lunar month festival of the Mongols or holiday celebration of the first day of “White Moon” or “White Month” symbolizes the departure of winter and welcoming the spring of the new year. This festival and its rituals and traditions are unique and naturally accorded with a specific lifestyle of Mongolian nomadic culture. Therefore, during this festival, there are no gatherings of masses on the street to participate in folk parades and street carnivals as in urban cities and villages.

The Kasteyev State Museum of Arts in Almaty has gathered a unique collection of Kazakh jewelry made during the eighteenth through twentieth centuries. These examples vary in form, type, and technique. The distinctive features commonly found on Kazakh jewelry make them true masterpieces which reflect a specific philosophical understanding of the world and demonstrate the great artistic abilities of the Kazakh people. Indeed, every element that comprises an individual piece of Kazakh jewelry, including its form, details, the material it was produced from, and patterns, has a specific purpose and meaning.\nKazakhstan’s abundant supply of nonferrous and precious metals, including gold and silver, encouraged the development of its metalwork for millennia. Casting, forging, molding, stamping, and embossing techniques emerged as early as the second millennium BC, during the Bronze Age, as did signatory traditional designs for jewelry worn by the Kazakhs both historically and today. Saka treasures discovered in different areas of Kazakhstan—the Issyk Kurgan and the Besshatyr, Kargaly, Altyn-Emel, Tagisken, Uigarak, and Berel burials—are true masterpieces.\nBy studying jewelry, scholars can discern a great deal of important social, economic, and cultural information about the people who wore them. The style of jewelry changed during the Migration Period when the Huns moved westward from 47 BC until the fourth century AD. Artisans applied fine metalwork to nearly all objects where metal was used, from jewelry and household items to harnesses.

The ger, a traditional dwelling created by nomadic Mongolians, is specifically designed to fit their way of life. Its semi- sphere shape helps the ger endure storms and tempests. It has solutions for heat control and ventilation. It is flexible in terms of size and design, and it is portable and lightweight. At the same time, it is also comfortable to live in and easy to build and dismantle. Moreover, the ger is used as a measure for time and directions.

Modernization and other internal and external influences have caused vernacular houses in the Asia- Pacific region to be replaced. Today, their traditional status has been taken over by houses constructed using newly introduced materials and styles, even in remote villages. Although a house, as a physical object, may be considered to be a tangible heritage, the vernacular house is a product that encompasses intangible components, including the knowledge, skills, and local traditions associated with their construction, use, and maintenance by the particular community. The conservation or protection of vernacular houses is, in other words, tantamount to safeguarding their rich culture rather than merely the preservation of static buildings. \n\nVernacular houses in the tropics of Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands are often built using native plants, and they require occasional rebuilding and regular maintenance. The knowledge and skills required for the construction of a vernacular house building are rarely documented. Instead, the expertise is generally stored in memory and in the activities that are undertaken by an individual, family, or community. This is transferred through practical experience down the generations and is only shared among the members of a community. Our initiative focuses on the reconstruction of vernacular houses in conjunction with local communities, creating opportunities to understand all the requisites of building these traditional structures by thoroughly recording the construction process. \n\nChanges that have occurred in individual values, the lifestyles of ethnic communities, and their surrounding environments have created a situation in which the resources that are necessary for the construction of vernacular houses are less easily available or no longer available. It is common for vernacular houses to be perceived as outdated, old-fashioned, and underdeveloped. A vernacular house can no longer be built and used in the same way that it was when it was the only choice of housing. We need to identify ways in which to sustain traditional house building practices and to utilize this knowledge by examining its potential and its meaning in the modern context. This paper introduces our approach to the reinstatement and reconstruction of vernacular houses and to the revival of related activities in conjunction with local communities in Fiji, Thailand, Vanuatu, and Vietnam and illustrates some of our findings. In the process, the study identifies what it takes to build and sustain vernacular housing.

With a history of exclusion and caste-based discrimination, the Devipujaks (worshippers of the Mother Goddess) have come a long way and carved out an identity of their own through the creation of the Kalamkari(hand-painted) tradition called Mata ni Pachhedi. A community of painters, hand printers, and dyers, settled in a small urban slum in Vasna, Ahmedabad, are struggling to sustain themselves by keeping alive this age-old art. This article attempts to capture the artform Mata ni Pachhedi and how the community is working on sustaining the textile tradition despite facing numerous challenges.

Can we consider shamanism as the basic, official religion in the Tibet region, Bhutan included? Rather it seems as though the basic religion is closer to animism, what are your thoughts on this? It was presented that the West and East shamanism is related to Buddhism and the South shamanism is related to the Hindu Religion. What are the notable differences between these two shamanisms? Exaplain in more detail about the Ghalley’s symtoms on new disease and no disease, the diagnosis of new disease, and the invocatory rite of a would-be medium.

Alisher Ikramov reviews information collected through a survey funded by ICHCAP. While his work primarily reviews ICH festivals, he is also able to gain insights into ways that networks can promote ICH along the Silk Roads. Looking at the importance of local communities and the popularity of such festivals locally, there is concern about a lack of a network to encourage larger tourist attendance. However, there are feelings that festivals do not authentically represent local traditions and products. Therefore, this could lead to an undesirable level of commoditization and as a result lower the quality of the event.

Language is the most crucial element of culture. It is the most distinctive accomplishment of humans, marking them off from other animal species. But, being made literally of mere thin air, language is also the most intangible among man’s cultural acquisitions. It has taken humans about half a million years to develop this unique skill that has so profoundly determined how human societies are formed and how they carry out communication among themselves as well as how they hand down the collective knowledge from one generation to another. This greatest cultural acquisition of man has come under an unprecedented stress in our time. It is estimated that out of the approximately 6,000 living languages, a majority shall disappear in near future. UNESCO has already started bringing out inventories of ‘world languages in danger.’

The yurt is not just a portable dwelling used by many nomadic peoples, but a pinnacle of nomadic creativity and a symbol of the national identity of the Kyrgyz people. Yurts have a plain construction, can be quickly assembled and dismantled by a few people, protect from the cold or from the heat of sun, and most importantly are entirely made of natural materials. This makes the yurt one of the best options for the promotion of eco-tourism and centuries-old traditions and crafts. No big life event in Kyrgyzstan goes without installing a yurt. Births, weddings, and funeral rituals are traditionally held in yurts. They are an integral part of all festivities, ceremonies, and important events from the local to national and international levels.

A treasure trove of both natural and cultural diversity, India is home to innumerable rural and indigenous communities dotting its varied geographical landscape. One such community—the Manganiyars—is a clan of hereditary professional musicians residing in the villages of the Thar desert in western Rajasthan. Their oral legends say that these communities settled in different villages of Barmer and Jaisalmer around a thousand years ago. \n\nThe Manganiyars hold a vast repertoire of folk songs integral to their ways of life and significant to their social systems. For centuries, their music has been supported by their traditional patrons, called Jajmans, who usually live in the same or nearby villages and engage the Manganiyars to sing at various life events and celebrations of their families in exchange for money, land, and gifts. A distinctive feature of this patron-server relationship is the Manganiyars’ exclusive and vital role as genealogists of their patrons’ families that can go back to fourteen or eighteen generations, such record keeping being entirely oral. The Manganiyars belong to the Mirasi (entertainers) community. They are Muslims but sing for both Hindu and Muslim patrons, performing songs of Hindu gods and goddesses as well as Muslim Pirs and \nFakirs (Sufi saints or spiritual guides). The melodic structure of their music resembles classical traditions, but in reality, is very different in terms of the raagas (combination of notes) and associated time theory. The Manganiyars believe that their children are born with an inherent sense of music that is naturally transmitted to subsequent generations through some magical non-formal framework that is undefined and innate. Unlike many other indigenous communities, they themselves have kept their tradition alive, believing that music is fundamental to their ‘being.’