Luis Trenker is one of Val Gardena’s most renowned locals. Since 1992, he has been seated on the promenade that bears his name in the form of a bronze sculpture created by Hermann Josef Runggaldier.

In the 1930s Trenker enjoyed career as an actor and director which remains critically acclaimed to this day and, in the post-war years, went on to promote the development of tourism through radio and TV narrations of his memoirs. 

Val Gardena owes its first valley road, which ran from Ponte Gardena to Ortisei and opened in 1856, to Johann Baptist Purger, merchant and mayor of Ortisei. In creating a link between the valley with the wider world, the road brought new opportunities for the sale of Val Gardena products and fostered the emergent tourism industry of the era.
In commemoration of Purger’s prescience and achievement, a wooden statue was erected on the Purger bridge at the entrance to the village in 1921. In the road’s centenary year, this statue was replaced with a bronze sculpture. 

This angel candlestick on a marble column base was inspired by 17th-century Italy. Its form and colouring could have been inspired by existing ceramic items. The round face of the angel has ruddy cheeks, while there are brown curls painted on its forehead. Angel candlesticks were always produced in pairs and formed part of serial domestic art in Val Gardena in the 18th and 19th centuries. 

Carefully made games with marbles from Val di Fassa also belonged to the items exported from Val Gardena. The game 'Kakelorum' worked like roulette, with the marble being thrown into the turban or crown of the figurine hollowed out like a helter-skelter. The marble then rolls down the spiral to land in the numbered dents in the plate at its base. 

Jester puppets in the form of people or animals were first produced in Oberammergau and also pop up in the Val Gardena range of the 19th century. Traditional jesters on sticks (in Ladin Cramaic) were manufactured until the First World War, and in modern form even until 1925. Bear jesters from Val Gardena were especially popular.

This cultural asset is part of the tour "Ortisei: a stroll through the village centre and its history".

Only a small selection of Val Gardena wooden toys were painted, and most of them were left unvarnished, known as 'white goods'. The simple mechanisms that the figures could be moved with made them fascinating objects. The body of the bucket carrier sways back and forth, while the scissors sharpener moves his feet to the turning of the wheels. Drumming monkeys, pecking hens, rocking horses, leaping clowns and lots more items were made.

Jointed dolls were the main item made by Gröden toy carvers from the 1840s until the First World War. The dolls were available in all sizes and the whole family was involved in their manufacture: arms, legs, face and body were produced separately, put together with wooden pegs or ball joints and the face was painted on. These jointed dolls were mainly sold in France and England.

This cultural asset is part of the tour "The turn-of-the-century economic boom in St. Ulrich: villas and workshops".

This artistically carved and delicately painted group of sculptures depicting the baptism of Christ in Jordan demonstrates the artistic quality of the baroque workshops. However, the Gröden masters had competition from young, unqualified wood carvers, who would carve during the winter without paying tax. On 1679, the masters made an appeal at Osteria Janesc, which was rejected due to the difficult economic situation of the wood carvers doing the work as a sideline. 

Theresia Gruber, known as Tresl da Ulëta, bequeathed Museum Gherdëina a collection of terracotta figurines and ceramic works. Daughter of two artists, and an art teacher herself, she dealt with a variety of materials all her life and was a promoter of the Ladin language back in the 1930s. In 1970, when she was 73 years old, she set up a pottery school in Belém in Brazil.  

This work depicting the nativity story in bas-relief, painted and framed in wood, was created in the art school at St. Ulrich. The work is from 1960 under the guidance of teachers Luis Piazza and Mili Schmalzl. One of the students working on it was Martin Gurschler, who went on to have a career as an artist. 

This cultural asset is part of the tour "The turn-of-the-century economic boom in St. Ulrich: villas and workshops".