During the second week of the Festival, Soul of Tengri showcased the work of eight Kazakh artists while highlighting the history, evolution, and legacy of nomadism in Kazakh communities.

How do the personal photographs of American American visitors at the 2018 Festival affect our understandings of cultural preservation?

This fall, photographer Narek Harutyunyan checked in with several artisans from the Armenia program.

The Smithsonian Folklife Festival is an exercise in cultural democracy, equity, and diplomacy.

Traditional culture permeates our lives. It includes things like what we eat for breakfast, how we greet our family, and how close or far we stand from other people when we encounter them in public places.

Always looking for new ways to keep people engaged in our work, even as it is unfolding, we will provide regular updates on the planning and development of the Catalonia program for the 2018 Folklife Festival.

Last month, the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage hosted the symposium Cultural Sustainability in the Age of Globalization along with the Alliance for California Traditional Arts and the Royal Textile Academy of Bhutan.

During the Festival, I worked closely with Pan Yuzhen 潘玉珍 and her daughter Zhang Hongying 张红英, embroiderers who are Miao, an ethnic minority.

Changes occur when ethnic music, which is typically passed down from generation to generation within a family in intimate settings, is institutionalized and commercialized

We remember her reflective calm, her serious gaze, her steady pace, her deep commitment and respect for the profundity of expressive life imagined and made by ordinary people.