This Easter, old traditions and the modern digital world were united in a project called Unbreakable Traditions. The initiative transformed the Easter eggs of Salánk/Shalanky, a village in Transcarpathia, into digital artworks.
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, people have been trying to help those in need in many different ways. The events of recent weeks have confronted an entire country with the fact that things taken for granted are as fragile as beautifully painted Easter eggs. Not only are the lives of people in Ukraine at risk, but their customs and traditions, including the tradition of painting Easter eggs, are also at risk.
In Shalanky, a tiny village in Transcarpathia, locals have been painting their unique waxed eggs for ever to celebrate the Resurrection and hope. Craft traditions shape and strengthen the small community through the making of these artisanal eggs, but this year’s celebration was overshadowed by the war.
The initiative supported by the Museum of Ethnography aims to preserve this tradition. With the help of Réka Kész, a PhD student at the Doctoral School of History and Ethnography of the University of Debrecen, we have managed to contact two egg-painting women from Shalanky, and, in collaboration with them, to create a collection of five Shalanky eggs. The hand-painted, unique eggs travelled a long way, first to Debrecen and then to Budapest, where they were digitized.
But photography, 3D scanning and digital reconstruction are only the first steps in preserving tradition. The project is launched with the new NFT (non fungible tokens). The five eggs have been turned into a collection that can be purchased for cryptocurrency on the Rarible digital art trading site. Every purchase will help to support the region, while the original, tangible eggs will live on in the Collection of Customs and Toys of the Museum of Ethnography.
Further information on the Unbreakable Traditions initiative is available on the website of the project, and the Museum of Ethnography.
Source: Press release
Like a local #6—Normafa Delikát, 4minutes café, Mazel Tov
Pioneer specialty coffee house My Little Melbourne celebrates its 10th birthday
