Though UNESCO is best known for the designation and preservation of world monuments, it also works to protect the more intangible aspects of our cultural heritage, like rituals, customs, crafts, and knowledge. As part of its effort to raise awareness about aspects of our heritage that are most at risk, it has just published the 2024 edition of its annual List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding.

It is little surprise that the arts feature prominently on the list, alongside many time-honed practices like Spanish cider production, Brazilian cheesemaking, Portuguese equestrian arts, festivals in Myanmar, nomadic migration in Mongolia, and the worship of water oracles in Cameroon.

Here are some of the world’s fading visual art traditions that UNESCO hopes will be preserved for future generations.

Serbia: Naïve Painting

Collective painting “My unique Kovačica” at the building of Gallery of Naïve Art in Kovačica. Photo: © Ana Žolnaj Barca / Gallery of Naïve Art, 2022.

The production of naïve paintings depicting everyday village life by a community of folk artists from Serbia’s minority ethnic Slovak community is one of the traditions being spotlighted by UNESCO. This self-taught style originated in 1939 when two farmers, Martin Paluska and Jan Sokol, inhabitants of the ethnic Slovak village of Kovacica in northern Serbia, took up painting in their spare time.

In 1955, the village established a gallery dedicated to local naïve art that welcomes around 20,000 visitors each year. It showcases stars of the movement like Martin Jonas and Zuzana Chalupová, whose charming works featured many children in traditional dress working in fields, playing in the snow-covered village, or engaging in domestic chores.

“Naïve painting is transmitted informally within families and local communities, with older community members sharing painting techniques and skills with youth,” according to UNESCO. It added that the practice “is a means of transmitting the cultural heritage and history of the Slovak community in Serbia.”

Ukraine: Egg Decoration

Contests of pysanka mistresses/masters are traditional at the annual festival “Pysanka.” Photo: © Yuriy Atamaniuk, 2023.

Known locally as pysanky, the Slavic tradition of using wax to cover eggs in intricate decorative patterns has been practiced in Ukraine since pagan times but was later adopted into Christian traditions around Easter. “I have watched people making pysankas since I was a kid,” said one elderly practitioner in a video for UNESCO. She passed the knowledge down to her own granddaughter, and for centuries it has passed along matrilineal lines as pysankas are usually made by women.

“Personal wishes and messages are captured in the symbols used,” UNESCO said of the decorative patterns. “After Easter, blessed pysankas are stored in homes as a source of protection. They can be made to honor the deceased or presented as gifts to celebrate important life-changing events such as the birth of a child, a christening, or a wedding.”

Colombia: Living Pictures of Galeras

A living picture dealing with themes of environmentalism and religion by Juan Pablo Meza. Photo: © Remberto Castro, 2021.

The living pictures of Galeras is an annual tradition that occurs around Christmas in the town of Galeras in northern Colombia. Local villages are decorated, becoming canvases against which members of the community take part in recreating static scenes that might be religious, historical, or everyday genre subjects. The collective creative endeavor is “the way for every person to transmit what they are feeling,” according to one practitioner Yorman Yepes Salcedo.

“The Living Pictures began in our territory in the second half of the 18th century,” said local historian Nicolas Marrugo Oviedo. “This was a practice used by priests to convert illiterate people.” UNESCO added that the works are, “are accompanied by other cultural practices such as rhymes, songs, dance, traditional music, local cuisine and crafts.” As such, “the living pictures of Galeras” constitute a powerful tool of communication and collective memory, connecting art with life while strengthening community ties and inclusion.”

China: Li Textile Technique

Traditional Li brocade techniques: Rong Yamei, state-level representative transmitter of the element. Photo: Chen Guanghai
© Hainan Provincial Mass Art Center, 2005.

The Li ethnic people, who predominantly live on Hainan Island in China, historically developed their own distinctive methods for spinning, dying, weaving, and embroidering using local cotton and hemp and dyes derived from mountainous plants. The techniques, which rely predominantly on wooden machines operated by hand, have been passed down the generations.

Though the Li people have their own dialect, they do not have characters. “In the absence of a written language, the patterns used on the textiles record the history and legends of Li culture as well as aspects of worship, taboos, beliefs, traditions and folkways,” according to UNESCO. The organization listed the technique previously in its 2009 list, noting that there were only 1,000 practitioners at that time, mostly elderly people. In the 15 years since, it said “the inter-generational transmission has been strengthened with the increased involvement of men.”

Belarus: Traditional Paper-Cutting

Vytsinanka. Navagrudak school, Grodna region. Photo: © Mikus. 2022.

Known as vytsinanka, the traditional art of paper-cutting was developed in the region that is now Belarus in the 16th century and was most often used to decorate church interiors. There was a major revival of the craft in the postwar decades of the 20th century, and it was used to decorate homes and communal spaces like offices and cafés. Among techniques used is the more simple cutting of symmetrical compositions with scissors to more complex designs that require a chisel.

“Masters demonstrate their abilities and creative techniques in various festivals, exhibitions, and fairs, and families continue to use it as a means of creative self-expression, passing the practice down from generation to generation,” said UNESCO. “As an art therapy practice, it contributes to the development of fine motor skills while promoting creative thinking.”

The 19th session of UNESCO’s committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage commenced in Paraguay on December 2 and finished on December 7.