China News Service, Hong Kong, May 18th. Title: Interview with Wu Zhihua, Director of the Hong Kong Palace Museum Cultural Museum: Hong Kong-style reinterpretation of the Forbidden City
China News Agency reporter Han Xingtong
When Beijing and Taipei, one south and one north, each have a Palace Museum, and Hong Kong builds a Palace Museum on the waterfront of Victoria Harbour, people can't help but doubt the role of the "Hong Kong Palace Museum".
The director of the Hong Kong Palace Museum, Wu Zhihua, believes that there is no conflict. Chinese culture is inherently integrated and multifaceted. Re-interpreting the "Forbidden City" from a Hong Kong-style perspective may be the opportunity to dimensionalize and modernize the Forbidden City culture.
In an exclusive interview with a reporter from China News Service, Wu Zhihua sat down beside a miniature museum to discuss the origin of the "Hong Kong Forbidden City" and the Forbidden City, which logically started from the architectural characteristics.
Architects use contemporary urban architectural language to deconstruct the spatial layout and design of the Forbidden City, and then merge the two into one. For example, the three atrium spaces of the museum progress vertically, connecting different buildings into one, which is to refer to the central axis of the Forbidden City. The space layout; the ceiling uses modern lines and materials to highlight the characteristics of the glazed tiles in the Forbidden City.
It is reported that the museum will have an exhibition hall of 7,800 square meters, which will be used to introduce the history and culture of the Forbidden City and display selected collections of the Palace Museum's paintings and calligraphy, utensils and ancient books.
Wu Zhihua revealed that the museum building is targeted to be completed in November this year, followed by exhibition hall decoration and other works. It is expected that more than 800 cultural relics will arrive in Hong Kong from the Forbidden City in April next year. Gift.
It is worth mentioning that one of the major exhibitions at the opening, "The Art of Horses", will exhibit about 300 artifacts from the Forbidden City related to horses and more than 10 pieces from the Louvre collection in France.
This curatorial approach of dialogue between Chinese and Western history and culture undoubtedly demonstrates the unique positioning of the Hong Kong Palace Museum. "We must use Hong Kong’s special cultural, geographical and historical background to interpret the cultural relics of the Palace Museum and China from a unique perspective and method. Culture, enrich its connotation, and introduce it to the world audience." The cultural differences of different regions in the history of human civilization will be amplified, compared, and of course connected on this platform.
Making ancient civilizations three-dimensional, revitalizing, and stepping into modern life is Wu Zhihua’s another expectation of the Hong Kong Palace Museum. “Only when ancient culture is connected with modern life can the audience resonate.” Some of his mind is not yet formed. For example, inviting young local artists to visit the cultural relics and then create, "see whether the cultural relics can affect his creation", so as to achieve a dialogue between ancient and modern artists; or incorporate multimedia elements to present cultural relics with performing arts.
In short, Wu Zhihua wants to try all possible expressions to interpret cultural relics.
The formation of this concept may be due to several exhibitions in the Forbidden City that he participated in the planning several years earlier.
About ten years ago, Zhang Zeduan's masterpiece "A Picture of the River on the Qingming Festival" was incarnation of animation and came to Hong Kong for an exhibition. The ancient bustling market came to life, and more than 900,000 people watched it.
After that, it was logical. Under his promotion, the cooperation between Hong Kong and the Forbidden City became closer. Many "treasures of the treasures" made an exception and arrived in Hong Kong, and his curation was always ingenious. "The place where the cultural relics are exhibited is not in the art museum, nor In the history museum, but in the science museum.” Those exhibitions understand the meaning of time, the operating principles of clocks and watches, and the restoration techniques of cultural relics from a scientific perspective.
The novel angle even makes the Palace Museum look at it, which in turn is used for exhibitions in other provinces and cities in the Mainland.
Wu Zhihua used to be a civil servant with the highest official title up to the Deputy Director of the Leisure and Cultural Services Department of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government.
Nowadays, the identity has changed, but there are more unchanged, especially the enthusiasm for museums.
He was studying history at the Chinese University of Hong Kong when he was in his 20s. He was most impressed by the fact that a group of insightful people in the Westernization Movement in the late Qing Dynasty listed the establishment of a museum as one of the important things in the country, "China needs a museum."
Wu Zhihua said that just as history is not studied for research, museums do not exist for collections. He still believes that the social and educational functions of museums can make the country and society better.
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