China News Agency, Beijing, June 28th: Shan Jixiang talks about the Hong Kong Palace Museum: making Hong Kong and the mainland culture more integrated
China News Agency reporter Ying Ni
On the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to the motherland, the Hong Kong Palace Museum is about to meet the public.
As the former director of the Palace Museum, Shan Jixiang admitted that he was fortunate enough to participate in and witness many precious moments during the brewing, site selection and construction stages of the Hong Kong Palace Museum.
He told the story a few days ago.
Data map: Shan Jixiang, former director of the Palace Museum and director of the Palace Academy.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Qu Honglun
Museum cooperation between Beijing and Hong Kong coincides with
In September 2015, the then Chief Secretary for Administration of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government, Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, was invited to the Palace Museum in Beijing to participate in the unveiling ceremony of the International Association for the Restoration of Cultural Relics Training Center.
Carrie Lam affirmed the good results achieved by the Palace Museum in its exhibitions in Hong Kong in recent years, and Shan Jixiang also expressed appreciation for the level and professionalism of her colleagues in Hong Kong in planning the exhibition.
At the same time, in his capacity as the director of the Palace Museum, he put forward a somewhat whimsical proposal at the time, that is, whether to build a museum in Hong Kong that will display the culture of the Palace Museum and Chinese culture for a long time.
In Shan Jixiang's view, the Palace Museum and the colleagues of the Hong Kong Museum have jointly held a number of large-scale cultural relics exhibitions, all of which have been successful, attracting hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong citizens and visitors, which shows that Hong Kong society has a strong interest in Chinese culture.
However, if it is necessary to display the cultural relics of the Palace Museum for a long time and on a large scale, there are limitations in both exhibition space and exhibition duration, and it is impossible to hold multiple exhibitions at the same time for a long time.
For this reason, it is a proposition worth thinking about whether to build a museum in Hong Kong to display the culture of the Forbidden City, in the form of a fixed location and regular replacement of exhibits, to display the rich and colorful Forbidden City culture and precious cultural relics.
"In the subsequent communications, we increasingly felt that the construction of a museum in Hong Kong to display the culture of the Forbidden City coincided with each other, and was entirely based on mutual benefit and resource sharing in cultural development between the two parties. It will upgrade the previous exchange mechanism between the Palace Museum and the Hong Kong Museum, standardize and systematically improve the Palace Museum's exhibitions in Hong Kong, and make it more professional, quality and routine." He said.
Shan Jixiang believes that for a long time, Hong Kong has attracted worldwide attention as the third largest financial center in the world after New York and London.
However, in terms of the number and scale of museums, Hong Kong is far behind New York and London.
"The construction of the Hong Kong Palace Museum is undoubtedly a major event in the development of Hong Kong's cultural undertakings. It will be conducive to Hong Kong's vision of becoming an international cultural metropolis, as well as the Palace Museum's development strategy towards internationalization and public life."
The museum brings the cultural blood of Hong Kong and the mainland closer together
From the birth of an idea to the final realization, it has experienced the coordination and efforts of many relevant staff in the Mainland and Hong Kong, whether it is the donation of HK$3.5 billion by the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charitable Trust Fund, or the determination of the Hong Kong SAR government to select the West Kowloon Cultural District, and Support from all aspects of software and hardware from the mainland.
In December 2016, the then Chief Secretary for Administration of Hong Kong, Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the West Kowloon Authority, and Shan Jixiang, the President representing the Palace Museum, signed the "The Palace Museum and the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority on the Construction of Hong Kong" in Beijing. The Memorandum of Cooperation between the Palace Museum and the Palace Museum officially launched the Hong Kong Palace Museum project.
According to the content of the memorandum of cooperation, the Hong Kong SAR government will set up a venue dedicated to the display of the Palace Museum culture in the West Kowloon Cultural District, which will be named "Hong Kong Palace Museum Culture Museum". There are five aspects of cultural and creative product marketing, creating a comprehensive exhibition space of the Forbidden City with unique Chinese traditional cultural characteristics.
On June 29, 2017, on the day President Xi Jinping arrived in Hong Kong for inspection, he went to the West Kowloon Cultural District for inspection. Ji Xiang signed the "Cooperation Agreement on the Construction of the Hong Kong Palace Museum".
In December 2017, the design plan of the Hong Kong Palace Museum was released.
In May 2018, the ground-breaking ceremony of the Hong Kong Palace Museum opened.
The main structure will be completed in November 2020.
In May 2022, the interior engineering of the museum building and the decoration of the exhibition hall will be completed.
On June 22, the Hong Kong Palace Museum held its opening ceremony and will officially open to the public on July 2.
In the words of Wu Zhihua, director of the Hong Kong Palace Museum, "This is a generous gift from the motherland to Hong Kong."
Shan Jixiang imagined that in the future, Hong Kong people will not only be able to see the rare collection of cultural relics from the Palace Museum in the Hong Kong Palace Museum, but also hear lectures by famous cultural relic experts.
The "Digital Forbidden City" can even make the audience feel "outside the palace, inside the palace", and bring home the cultural and creative products of the Forbidden City.
Young students have more opportunities to participate in the knowledge classroom activities of the Forbidden City and learn more traditional cultural knowledge.
"Through education and promotion activities, including exchanges and internships for young people, to enhance their understanding of history, culture and art, and to have a deeper understanding of the Palace Museum culture, so that the cultural blood of Hong Kong and the mainland will be more integrated." (End)