Folklore, creativity, and cultural memory

This paper addresses the question of how folk art can be, simultaneously, a vehicle for cultural memory and cultural creativity. It takes the case of Romanian Easter egg decoration as a practice situated at the intersection between art, folklore, religion and a growing market, it order to unpack the role of tradition and creativity in the life of a rural community. Egg decoration is an old custom, with pre-Christian roots, practiced extensively in the historical region of Bucovina, and relying on a complex system of material artefacts and symbolic elements acquired and enacted by artisans usually from an early age. At the core of this practice stands the depiction of patterned ornaments known as motifs. These ornaments are constitutive of identity and memory and their decorative features facilitate and encourage the creative expression of folk artists. Tradition in this sense is not by any means the opposite of creativity but the actual vehicle of creative activity and its understanding as a stable cultural system ‘engraved’ in collective memory needs to be challenged. The tradition of egg decoration in Romania is a living and evolving social practice that engages the self and community in a creative exercise of building a cultural identity and (re)constructing the connection to a shared past. Illustrations are offered here of the ways in which cultural memory has a productive function in relation to the life of individuals and collectives and, at the same time, creativity is part and parcel of this phenomenon. This invites us to discover new theoretical and practical devices that are sensitive to both stability and change within cultural systems.