Guiyang, May 5 -- Museums: Becoming a "textbook"

Written by Zhou Yanling

In Guiyang Vocational and Technical College, there is a 2500,3000-square-meter colorful Qianyi Museum with a collection of more than 2,<> sets of national costumes and more than <>,<> embroidery pieces, which is a private museum newly settled in the school.

The entry of the museum is very happy for Long Yijing, a "post-00" student majoring in fashion design at Guiyang Vocational and Technical College. "It is not only a place to learn and understand the national costume culture, but also to find a 'treasure trove' for inspired designs."

The picture shows the national costumes on display in the Guizhou Colorful Qianyi Art Museum. Photo by Zhou Yanling

"I come to the museum whenever I have time, and in addition to learning traditional craftsmanship, I often go to the museum to find design inspiration." Long Yijing told Chinanews.com that the patterns and patterns on many costumes in the museum are outdated even today.

"Intangible cultural heritage is the best 'textbook' left to us by our ancestors, and the museum is a 'textbook'." Talking about why the museum was moved into the school in 2023, Chen Yueqiao, director of the Guizhou Colorful Qianyi Art Museum, explained that he hopes that through the cultural dissemination of the museum and the introduction of intangible cultural heritage into the campus, students can feel the beauty of intangible cultural heritage and better popularize national cultural knowledge.

Walking into the Colorful Qian Art Museum, there are all kinds of ethnic costumes as far as the eye can see, not only Guizhou Shidong Miao embroidery costume, Rongjiang Miao ethnic bird clothing, but also Yunnan Malipo Yi costume, Hunan Longhui Yao ethnic set. These national costumes are either simple or gorgeous, and spectators stop in the museum to watch, or lean down to observe the embroidery stitches on the costumes.

The picture shows Chen Yueqiao, director of the Guizhou Colorful Qianyi Art Museum (left), explaining to the visitors. Photo courtesy of interviewee

"The embroiderers used the silk thread in their hands to record the history of the nation on their clothes, telling the moving or tragic legends handed down by their ancestors." Chen Yueqiao said that the museum was originally created to display the beauty of ethnic minority costumes and leave "national DNA".

Chen Yueqiao, who has long been committed to the protection and research of ethnic minority costume collections, has spent more than 10 years visiting ethnic minority villages in Guizhou, collecting a large number of ethnic minority costumes, embroidery pieces, production and living tools and other collections, 80% of which are cultural relics.

From the collection of a Miao embroidery piece, to the opening of a museum in 2016, to the relocation of this comprehensive private museum integrating exhibitions, cultural exchanges, intangible genetic inheritance, academic research, R&D and production to the school in 2023, Chen Yueqiao bluntly said that "the process is difficult and happy".

Data show that since its official free opening in 2016, the Museum has received nearly one million visitors at home and abroad, including many national costume researchers, anthropologists and art design creators.

"For many scholars who come to visit, museums can save a lot of time and energy for their academic research, because it is actually difficult to go from physical objects to documents to physical objects, and museums can show physical objects to everyone." Chen Yueqiao said that when visitors come to visit the museum, tourism students in the school can also come as guides to achieve the purpose of "integration of industry and education".

The picture shows Chen Yueqiao (first from right), director of the Guizhou Colorful Qianyi Art Museum, with the embroidered ladies. Photo courtesy of interviewee

In Chen Yueqiao's view, most of the school museums are "raised in purdah", but they have long become an important position for educating people, these museums can not only be visited, studied and researched by students, but also stimulate students' cultural self-confidence, so that students can understand the excellent traditional Chinese culture from another dimension.

Talking about the future, Chen Yueqiao said frankly that he plans to increase the construction of digital museums, digitize and convert the collection products into intellectual property rights, and cooperate with different institutions, "Digitalization requires great economic support, but it can be done once and for all, which is also a 'new way' for the development of private museums." (End)

The picture shows students of Guiyang Vocational and Technical College learning embroidery in the Guizhou Colorful Qian Art Museum. Photo by Zhou Yanling