«Ancient Sea Language»: Cultural Diplomacy among Youth

31/03/2023 17:01

“Ancient Sea Language” - a teleconference under this title was held between students of the Yekaterinburg Academy of Modern Art and the Institute of Design of Shenyang Pedagogical University at the initiative of the Representative Office of the Eurasian Peoples’ Assembly in the Sverdlovsk Region (Russia) and the Idea Social Activity Foundation.

A teleconference was held in a hybrid format at the site of the DOMNA art cluster in Yekaterinburg. The event is the beginning of a series of such events to create a youth clothing line basing on Ural marble patterns and Chinese characters.

The hall was attended by more than 50 Russian students and teachers and representatives of the Ministry of International and Foreign Economic Relations of the Sverdlovsk Region. Director of the Confucius Institute at the Ural Federal University Ksenia Lozovskaya, students - future designers - and teachers of the Shenyan Pedagogical University joined the teleconference online. They told how they searched for images similar to marble patterns, how they were surprised by the result.

Russian and Chinese students supported by Yekaterinburg fashion designer Lena Piskulina, will conduct a series of training workshops and create youth clothing sketches that can become material for finding investors for tailoring.

The “Ancient Sea Language” project has been implemented by the Idea Foundation since 2021 together with EASI. It aims to promote national identity and search for original art forms to embody the idea. 250 photographs of Ural marble patterns were digitized and sent to Chinese partners for they could see the encrypted voice of the ancient Ural sea in them and find similarities with Chinese characters.

17 coincidences of marble images with hieroglyphs became the theme of the exhibition, its premiere took place at the residence of the Governor of the Sverdlovsk Region. The hieroglyphs also served as the basis for creating the characters of the animated video by EASI student Samira Grebneva called "The Unity of Europe and Asia". Participants in the teleconference were able to see the first footage of the film, which is scheduled to premiere in May.

The first teleconference became a confirmation of the diversity of forms of cultural diplomacy among youth.