Documentation and protection of wire craft at the Považie Museum in Žilina

Wire craft is a unique and authentic local folk craft that nearly disappeared due to unfavourable political and economic developments in the interwar period and post-war industrialisation in the mid-20th century. To revive the craft, the Považie Museum in Žilina established a project to document and protect it. It comprises a set of activities intended not only to revive, sustain and develop this craft and to facilitate its real acceptance by the national community as an element of its cultural heritage, but also to gradually establish a centre for information, methodology and coordination on wire craft. A specialised unit with national competence and international contacts has been implementing the project at the Považie Museum in Žilina since 1994. Through its research, acquisition, presentation, exhibition, publication, education and promotional activities, searches for documents, permanently conserves and protects material and intangible heritage, documents and knowledge in the relevant area, which it records in its extensive and growing database. The unit is reviving the original skills of wire craft, promoting them and seeking out new potential applications. It helps wire craft to adapt to new conditions, monitors the situation, level and development trends of its current expressions and supports and coordinates the individuals and communities that are the bearers of wire craft to encourage its further development. Thanks to the broad and comprehensive scope of the project, it makes a highly effective contribution to the sustainability of a specific aspect of intangible cultural heritage and can serve as a model of good practice in the care and protection of intangible cultural heritage in Slovakia and abroad.