(Question about things) Wang Chunfa, curator of the National Museum: How can Chinese culture better "go out"?
China News Service, Beijing, August 1st. Title: Wang Chunfa, Director of the National Museum of Art: How can Chinese culture better "go out"?
China News Agency reporter Zheng Qiao
How to better promote the Chinese culture to go global, to express the Tao, use the words to spread the voice, and use the cultural people?
How to explain to the world more outstanding culture with Chinese characteristics, embodying Chinese spirit, and containing Chinese wisdom?
Wang Chunfa, curator of the National Museum of China and vice president of the European and American Alumni Association, recently accepted an exclusive interview with China News Service on "Questions of East and West". Starting from the actual work of cultural and cultural institutions, Wang Chunfa shared his thoughts.
He pointed out that when Chinese culture goes out, in addition to going out in form, it is more important for more people to understand the cultural connotations carried in it.
Wang Chunfa.
Photo courtesy of me
Reporter from China News Service: As the country’s cultural living room, the National Museum of China shoulders the important responsibility of promoting exchanges and mutual learning between different cultures. It plays an important role as a window in developing foreign cultural exchanges, displaying the charm of Chinese civilization, and disseminating the achievements of world civilization. How do you think Chinese cultural and cultural institutions should adapt to the current international environment and better promote Chinese culture to go global?
Wang Chunfa: The
National Museum is the highest historical, cultural and artistic palace in the country that focuses on reflecting the excellent traditional Chinese culture, revolutionary culture and advanced socialist culture of China.
Promoting culture to go global is not only the need to maintain the national bloodline, promote the national spirit, develop Chinese culture, and enhance cultural self-confidence, but also the need to show the image of China to the world, promote exchanges and mutual learning of civilizations, and enhance the right to speak in the world. It is the bounden duty of Guobo And mission.
In recent years, the National Expo has taken going global as one of the important strategies for the development of the entire museum. It has focused on telling Chinese stories, extensively carried out foreign exchanges and cooperation, deepened dialogues between civilizations at different levels, and built a three-dimensional, full-media, and Decentralized international communication system.
China is quite different from Western countries in terms of political system, cultural tradition, etc. Some Western media still look at China wearing colored glasses.
The prejudices, misunderstandings, and even provocations of the West against China are obstacles to cultural exchanges and mutual learning.
In order for the world to better understand China, we need to express internationally, look at China's contribution from the development of world history, look at China's current situation from the perspective of globalization, and defend China from the perspective of the world.
Chinese cultural and cultural institutions should communicate and interact with colleagues in international museums with a more open mind and a more confident stand, participate in international cultural communication, and promote broader exchanges and cooperation.
Wang Chunfa.
Photo courtesy of me
China News Agency reporter: In your opinion, in the process of promoting Chinese culture to go global, what are the specific problems or areas that need improvement?
Wang Chunfa:
Chinese culture going out is a particularly urgent issue.
At present, in terms of cultural exchanges, more people are brought in, and relatively few people are going out.
In particular, there are relatively few activities that we independently plan and can drive everyone to have a new understanding of China in the world.
In terms of museum work, organizing exhibitions abroad is an important way.
For a long time, more exhibitions have been introduced and few have gone out, and the ones that have gone out are mainly ancient exhibitions. There are few modern exhibitions, and even fewer reflect the great changes in New China.
To go global, I think we should create a systematic, three-dimensional and complete image of Chinese culture.
In addition to being a big eastern country with a long history, China is also a socialist country, a very dynamic and promising country.
Regarding the shaping and promotion of this image, we have not done enough.
In addition, when Chinese culture goes out, in addition to going out in form, it is more important for more people to understand the value concept and way of thinking contained in it, that is, cultural connotation.
For example, making dumplings means the Chinese people's pursuit of reunion, which is a different culture between China and the West.
When the form of making dumplings goes out, can the connotation be truly understood?
The direction of our efforts and exploration is to make cultural connotations understood by more people.
Data map: Qing Dynasty court treasures are on display at the National Museum of China.
Image source: ic photo
Reporter from China News Service: You just mentioned that nowadays overseas exhibitions are mainly based on ancient exhibitions. In our impression, ancient cultural relics are more interesting to overseas audiences. What do you think of this phenomenon? How can we better demonstrate the charm of Chinese culture?
Wang Chunfa:
Traditionally, the exhibition of ancient cultural relics can arouse the interest of overseas audiences. This is mainly because the academic background of the Chinese experts in overseas museums is mainly to study ancient cultural relics, and the study of modern cultural relics is very rare. Therefore, foreign museums are very interested in The display and collection of Chinese civilization are mainly ancient cultural relics.
The overseas audience's understanding of Chinese civilization comes from foreign museums, so they are more familiar with ancient Chinese cultural relics and feel more cordial.
Modern history and culture, especially our revolutionary culture, are very strange to overseas audiences.
In the past 20 years, due to the intervention of the capital market, Chinese contemporary art has also received a lot of international attention.
However, because Chinese contemporary art is too much affected by the international art market, the embodiment of socialist advanced culture is sometimes one-sided or even negative.
It can be said that Westerners have always had a curiosity mentality in their understanding of Chinese culture, and we have also consciously or unconsciously catered to this mentality and lacked guidance.
In fact, we shouldn't give others what they like, but we think it is beautiful and interesting, and then we can tell him in an understandable language to impress him.
For example, in the past 100 years, China has undergone earth-shaking changes. No matter what standards are used to measure this change, it is definitely a miracle in human history.
How did this miracle happen?
Make it clear.
In general, how to tell the story of China's development and to introduce China's experience to the world requires careful exploration.
We have also made some attempts.
In 2019, in cooperation with the Hong Kong Museum of History, we organized the "Road to Modernization-Seventy Years of the Republic" exhibition. The exhibition displayed more than 170 pieces (sets) of the National Museum's collection and more than 40 pieces (sets) of the Hong Kong Museum of History. The collection allows visitors to understand the modernization process of the People’s Republic of China over the past 70 years.
During the exhibition, more than 1,000 people visited every day, and the effect was good.
Data map: Wu Weishan's sculpture "Confucius" on display in the National Museum of China.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Jiang Qiming
China News Agency reporter: In recent years, the National Expo has continuously strengthened its efforts to hold overseas (border) exhibitions. The proportion of outbound exhibitions has increased from 12.5% in 2016 to 37.5% in 2019. To promote the Chinese culture to go global, what experience does the National Expo have to share?
Wang Chunfa:
In recent years, the National Museum has done a lot of work in expanding its "friend circle", enhancing its influence, international status and voice. It actively promotes the maturity and stability of its relationship with world-class museums, and strives to promote the establishment of the new museum organization that it takes the lead. It is deeply involved in the international governance of museums, and actively promotes the initiative of international communication.
In the context of China's increasingly frequent cultural exchanges with foreign countries, there are more and more international colleagues in contact with the National Museum, and the countries involved are more and more diverse.
According to incomplete statistics, the National Museum currently maintains liaison with nearly 100 foreign museums at all levels, and has signed memorandums of deepening cooperation with the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There are more and more ways to go out.
During the COVID-19 pandemic last year, I had a deep experience.
After we issued an invitation to hold the “Online Relay of Global Museum Collections Exhibition” event, we quickly received a positive response.
The theme of "Hand in Hand-We Are With You" Global Museum Collection Exhibition Online Relay Event will last 9 days from September 6, 2020. The wonderful special live broadcast of 16 museums in 15 countries on 5 continents will be broadcast to the world. Shows the cultural charm of the museum.
More than 20 platforms participated in the live broadcast, attracting a total of about 200 million global viewers to “chasing drama” online, and the number of Weibo topics read reached 190 million.
In addition, the museum exchanges and cooperation platforms are broader. The National Museum has taken the lead in creating platforms for foreign exchanges and cooperation at different levels. Among them, the Global Museum Directors Forum serves as a multilateral dialogue and decision-making platform at the global level. The Silk Road International Museum Alliance and the BRICS Museum Alliance Such as cross-regional international exchange and cooperation platforms, the international influence has gradually increased.
Currently preparing for the establishment of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization International Museum Alliance.
The National Museum also actively participates in various activities of many international organizations, such as the UNESCO, the International Association of Museums, and the International Fund for the Protection of Endangered Cultural Heritage, and its participation in global governance continues to increase.
Data map: Tourists visit and tour in the National Museum of China.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Jiang Qiming
China News Agency reporter: In the next stage, how will the National Expo strengthen the promotion of Chinese culture going global?
Wang Chunfa: The
National Expo will continue to strengthen its independent curatorial capabilities and showcase the long-term exchange and integration of Chinese civilization with other civilizations in the world.
For example, the “East-West Dialogue in the Great Navigation Era” exhibition will be launched to show the economic and cultural exchanges between the East and the West in the Great Navigation Era, and to reshape the global view of history from the “Chinese perspective”; and the “Chinese Art, Italian Art and Artificial Intelligence Exhibition” will also be held. ", presents the important role of Chinese traditional painting in the history of world painting; and uses digital technology to launch a multimedia exhibition of "Qianlong Southern Tour" overseas.
At the same time, we will continue to promote the diversified development of going global, launch the Uzbekistan International Joint Archaeological Excavation Project, launch a series of international communication books in multiple languages, launch a network of museums international consultants, strengthen the construction of the Silk Road International Museum Alliance website, and further enhance international communication capabilities.
It will also deeply participate in the global governance of museums, actively participate in the activities of international organizations such as UNESCO, the International Association of Museums, and the International Fund for the Protection of Endangered Cultural Heritage, conduct extensive practical cooperation with various international organizations, and support Chinese experts and scholars to participate in various international conferences and conferences. Academic seminar activities to enhance international discourse power and participation.
The mission of the National Museum of China is to comprehensively display the excellent traditional Chinese culture, revolutionary culture and advanced socialist culture, embody the Chinese perspective, give out a Chinese voice, and let the world know a true, three-dimensional, comprehensive and colorful China.
At the National Propaganda and Ideological Work Conference, General Secretary Xi Jinping clarified the requirement of "continuously enhancing the influence of Chinese culture", which has pointed out the path for us to promote the construction of international communication capacity under the new situation.
How to achieve this goal, we are also working hard to explore, hoping to promote the construction of a "community with a shared future for mankind" by reconstructing the development context of Chinese civilization in the world civilization, finding commonalities in the development of human society, and discussing the future of art and science together. "The great goal.
(Finish)
Chunfa Wang, Bachelor of History, Master of Economics from Lanzhou University, Ph.D. of Economics from Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Promoted to researcher in 2000.
Since 2017, he has been the director of the National Museum of China and the director of the academic committee.
He has successively engaged in teaching and academic research at China University of Geosciences (Beijing) and Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
From 1998 to 1999, he was a visiting scholar at George Washington University in the United States.
He has been engaged in scientific and technological policy research and management for a long time, presided over the compilation of "Science and Technology Dream·Chinese Dream—Thematic Exhibition Album of Modern Chinese Scientists" and multi-volume academic biographies of modern Chinese scientists, and presided over the translation of "Cambridge European Economic History" and "The Growth of International Economy" : 1820-1990" "Scientific Decision-Making Translation Series" and many other important academic works.
In recent years, his research focus has shifted to museum management, and he has served as the editor-in-chief of publications such as "National Museum of China Museum Journal" and "Museum Management".