Workshops on painting fans with East Asian motifs

Prior to the end of the exhibition A Fragment of the Far East, the Maritime Museum Piran organized, in cooperation with the Department of Asian Studies of the Faculty of Arts at  Ljubljana University, two workshops on the topic of fan painting with East Asian motifs.

They took place on Friday, 5 April 2024, at the exhibition halls, where visitors were able to take a good look at few fans and other items brought by mariners from their voyages to East Asia in the period from the end of the 19th century to the 1950s.

The workshops were led by the illustrator Lili Saje Wang and the Japanologist and ethnologist Dr Nataša Visočnik Gerželj from the Department of Asian Studies, Faculty of Arts, Ljubljana University. The first workshop was attended by the Sečovlje Primary School pupils, while the second workshop, envisaged for adults as well as children from the age of 10 onwards, attracted more adults, too. Both the former and the latter enthused over the workshop, which was clearly corroborated by their products.

In the introductory part, Nataša Visočnik Gerželj spoke of the origin of fans, of their different types as well as of their use and significance in East Asia. At the same time, she presented the motifs on the fans and their symbolism. Lili Saje Wang then acquainted the workshop participants with the basics of East Asian brush painting and some East Asian motifs. Under her guidance, the participants were first painting on rice paper, then each of them painted his or her own fan.

The workshops were implemented as part of the project Orphaned objects - Treatment of East Asian objects outside the established collecting practices, in which the Maritime Museum Piran also takes part.