Contemporary practices of intangible cultural heritage are undergoing a structural shift: from an object-centered logic of preservation toward a field-based understanding of generative cultural processes. Within this shift, ritual, oral tradition, and embodied practice are no longer treated as discrete cultural artifacts to be archived independently, but rather as part of a continuously producing dynamic system of meaning.

Within this framework, culture and art are no longer separate domains, but mutually constitutive structures that emerge through ongoing processes of interpretation, embodiment, and re-presentation. Cultural forms are not secondary to artistic practice; rather, they are continuously aestheticized, organized, and re-contextualized through practice itself.

Within the cultural field presented by the 18th Strait Forum · Chen Jinggu Cultural Week, this structure becomes particularly evident. Ritual practice functions not only as a mechanism of transmission, but also as a spatial mode of cultural organization, through which collective memory, bodily action, and local knowledge are simultaneously activated and reproduced within a shared process.

From this perspective, cultural heritage is no longer a static category to be preserved, but an ever-activated field of cognition. Within this field, cultural knowledge is not stored, but continuously generated through ongoing practice, reinterpretation, and reconfiguration.



This understanding also implies that the perception of folk culture is no longer confined to a single framework, but unfolds across multiple cultural logics:

Within heritage preservation discourse, it is understood as a “living tradition” that must be documented and sustained;

Within contemporary urban cultural experience, it is transformed into an aesthetic and experiential form of participation;

Within cultural production and local cultural economies, it becomes part of a circulating cultural resource system;

Within curatorial and contemporary art discourse, it is understood as a “system of cultural generation,” in which meaning is continuously produced through the interaction of body, space, and interpretive frameworks.

This multi-layered structure demonstrates that folk culture is not a singular object, but an open system that is continuously used, experienced, interpreted, and re-created.

In the concrete practice of this cultural framework, the Chen Jinggu Cultural Week of the 18th Strait Forum took place from June 10 to 12, 2026, at the Linshui Palace Ancestral Temple in Gutian County, Fujian Province. As a cross-regional cultural field spanning mainland China, Taiwan, and overseas cultural networks, the program re-situated diverse intangible cultural practices within a shared cultural structure, allowing ritual, local knowledge, and transregional cultural experience to intersect on site.

The Taoist Association of New York participated in this cultural field as an overseas cultural entity, engaging through field observation and curatorial practice, while documenting and interpreting cultural processes within the ritual and exchange activities.

Vice President Liu Luocheng participated as a representative in the ritual practice segment.

Chengze Wu, President of the Taoist Association of New York, Founder of Three Mountains Gallery, and curator, participated through curatorial coordination and field observation, approaching the event from a cross-cultural perspective and engaging in the interpretation and methodological translation of living heritage practices.