Beijing, 5 May (ZXS) -- How do museums "tell" stories of mutual learning between Chinese and foreign civilizations?
Author: Wang Ming Executive Director of Beijing Cultural Heritage Research Center, Capital Normal University
Exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations are an important driving force for the progress of human civilization and the peaceful development of the world. The museum is the gathering place of human civilization, an important hall for the protection and inheritance of human civilization, an important place for civilizational dialogue among countries around the world, and a bridge connecting cultural relics with Chinese and foreign tourists.
International Museum Day is celebrated on 5 May, and this year's theme is "Museums, Sustainability and the Better Life". China is a big country with museum resources. According to data released by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage earlier this year, in 18, there were 2021,6183 museums on record in China, of which 4194,1989 were museums in China and <>,<> were non-state-owned. These museums and their exhibitions have become the world's best "check-in" experience places to understand China, and are an important carrier for telling Chinese stories to the world.
The cultural relics in the museum tell the history of cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries
The museum is a building space for collecting fine cultural relics, and treasures the story of cultural exchanges and mutual learning between China and foreign countries. Many cultural relics related to Sino-foreign exchanges have been created, displayed, moved or donated along with people, cultural exchanges and civilization blending between the East and the West in history. Today, they are housed in the museum's bright exhibition halls or transparent display cases, where they see "people" through "things" and "tell" to the public the stories of mutual learning between civilizations that they witness.
May 2022, 5 is International Museum Day, and children walk into the Kunming Zoological Museum to visit bird specimens. Photo by Kang Ping
Among the cultural relics in the collections of many museums in China, the most precious are the fine cultural relics listed by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage in the "Catalogue of Cultural Relics Prohibited from Going Abroad (Border) for Exhibition", many of which are important witnesses of cultural exchanges between China and other countries in the world. For example, the Tang Dynasty pottery camel carrying music and dancing three-colored figurines, now in the National Museum of China, have beautiful and vivid shapes, full of strong exotic atmosphere, which is an important material evidence of the development and prosperity of Tang Dynasty culture, art and production technology, and witnesses the exchange and integration on the Silk Road; The gold-encrusted beast-headed agate cup in the Shaanxi History Museum has come from the Tang Dynasty for thousands of years, showing the fusion of Eastern and Western cultures during the heyday of the Silk Road; The duck-shaped glass note housed in the Liaoning Provincial Museum, unique in shape and unique in the world, not only proves the existence of the grassland Silk Road, but also proves that Eastern and Western cultures exchanged frequently more than 1600 years ago. Many cultural relics are either graphic depictions of Chinese and foreign personnel exchanges, typical embodiments of Sino-foreign technological exchanges, or written testimonies of the integration of Chinese and foreign cultures, allowing us to expand our vision to the vast world where the Silk Road once extended westward.
A three-colored figure of a Tang Dynasty pottery camel carrying music and dance in the National Museum of China. Photo courtesy of Visual China
A gold-encrusted beast-headed agate cup in the Shaanxi History Museum. Photo by Zhang Yuan
A duck-shaped glass note in the Liaoning Provincial Museum. Photo by Yang Xingbin
The museum is a historical and cultural landmark of the city and a memorandum of history exchanged between China and foreign countries. Some museums in China have launched a series of basic exhibitions or special exhibitions reflecting the essence chapters and wonderful waves in the process of mutual learning between Eastern and Western civilizations, which have aroused enthusiastic responses at home and abroad. For example, the Guangdong Provincial Museum's collection of marine cultural relics is quite distinctive, presenting the historical context of Guangdong's overseas trade, and the museum's exhibition "The Great Road - Nanhai I Shipwreck and Southern Song Sea Trade" shows the flourishing overseas trade system of the Song Dynasty by displaying the hot overseas goods of Southern Song China. The Hainan Provincial Museum displays "The Direction of the Sea - Special Exhibition of the Huaguang Jiao I Shipwreck" and "Nanming Pangang - Exhibition of Marine Civilization in the South China Sea", which tells the rich history of oriental marine civilization. On this year's International Museum Day, the exhibition "Under the Fuzhou Space - Cultural Imprints of the Maritime Silk Road" will be unveiled at the Fujian Museum, using more than 16 fine cultural relics from about 40 museums in 300 provinces and cities along the Maritime Silk Road to interpret the exchanges and mutual learning between different civilizations in the world.
Guangdong Provincial Museum held the exhibition "Haidao - Nanhai I. Shipwreck and Southern Song Sea Trade". Photo by Chen Jimin
Hainan Provincial Museum held "The Direction of the Sea - Special Exhibition of the Huaguang Jiao I. Shipwreck". Photo by Luo Yunfei
The Hainan Provincial Museum's "Nanming Pangang - South China Sea Marine Civilization Exhibition" simulates the archaeological site of the shipwreck remains of "Huaguangjiao No. 1". Photo by Luo Yunfei
The countless cultural relics in the museum connect the overland Silk Road, the Maritime Silk Road, the Tea Horse Road, the Tea Boat Road, etc., "telling" the close connection between China's vast land and the world's material and spiritual culture, and showing the unique charm of the museum "telling" the mutual learning of civilizations.
The joint curatorial exhibition of Chinese and foreign museums tells the story of contemporary civilization exchanges
The museum is an international platform for exhibition exchanges and a dialogue venue for mutual learning among civilizations. For a long time, inter-museum cooperation exhibitions across national borders have improved the cultural service capacity of museums and strengthened friendly exchanges between countries around the world.
In recent years, Chinese museums such as the National Museum and the Capital Museum have co-curated exhibitions with some well-known museums around the world, allowing Chinese people to see the fine cultural relics that have gone to China up close and understand different world civilizations.
China and Italy, at both ends of the Silk Road, are important sources of human civilization, and the two countries have a long history of contacts and exchanges. Nowadays, China and Italy jointly curate exhibitions in China or Italy every year, such as "The Origin of Italy - Ancient Roman Civilization Exhibition" held at the National Museum of China, "Art, Culture and Life in Renaissance Italy" exhibition at the Capital Museum, "Pompeii: Moments and Eternity - Special Exhibition of Excavated Cultural Relics from Pompeii" at the Tianjin Museum, "Stunning Land: Collection of the National Archaeological Museum of Naples" at the Pudong Art Museum in Shanghai, etc. Bronze, gold, glassware, pottery and many other rare treasures let the audience feel the continuous exchanges and mutual learning between civilizations, and are also a witness of the continuous close and deepening of cultural exchanges between China and Italy and the profound friendship between the two peoples.
"The Origin of Italy - Ancient Roman Civilization Exhibition" organized by the National Museum of China. Photo by Du Jianpo
Exhibition "Renaissance Italian Art, Culture and Life" at the Capital Museum. Photo courtesy of Visual China
"Pompeii: Moments and Eternity – Special Exhibition of Excavated Cultural Relics from Pompeii" held by Tianjin Museum. Photo by Li Shengli
"Stunning Beauty: Collection of the National Archaeological Museum of Naples" at the Pudong Art Museum in Shanghai. Photo courtesy of Visual China
The cultural relics exhibitions held by China or in cooperation with Asian countries also vividly tell the story of exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations. The National Museum of China's "Great America Asia - Asian Civilization Exhibition" and the Sichuan Museum's "Great America Asia - Special Exhibition of Cultural Relics from Six Asian Countries" exhibited treasured cultural relics from museums in various Asian countries, presenting a colorful picture of Asian civilization exploring the interaction between man, nature and society. At the same time, the China Cultural Relics Exchange Center organized the "Three Kingdoms Exhibition" jointly held by the Tokyo National Museum and the Kyushu National Museum in Japan, and the Hubei Provincial Museum held the "Lile Huazhang - Special Exhibition of Hubei Cultural Relics in China" at the National Museum of India, allowing local people to appreciate the broad and profound traditional Chinese culture. These exhibitions have made new contributions to deepening exchanges among Asian civilizations and protecting the essence of Asian civilizations.
"Great America Asia - Asian Civilization Exhibition" organized by the National Museum of China. Photo by Kyushu
Sichuan Museum held the "Great America Asia - Special Exhibition of Cultural Relics of Six Asian Countries". Photo by Wang Lei
It is worth mentioning that at the 2019 Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations, China proposed to carry out Asian cultural heritage protection actions and carry out practical cooperation in ancient civilization research and museum exchanges. On April 4 this year, the Asian Cultural Heritage Protection Alliance was established at the first Asian Cultural Heritage Protection Alliance General Assembly, and issued the Xi'an Declaration of the Asian Cultural Heritage Protection Union, which proposed that all parties jointly advocate the diversity of world civilizations, attach importance to the inheritance and innovation of civilizations, strengthen international people-to-people exchanges and cooperation, and carry forward the common values of all mankind.
"City of Museums" to Create a "City Hall" for International Exchanges
The museum is a comprehensive stage for interpreting historical contexts and a valuable container for storing cultural memory. China has actively expanded the concept of "museum", and has built many "intangible cultural heritage museums" that combine museums with the living inheritance and transmission of intangible cultural heritage, "ecological museums" that pay attention to the combination of museums and cultural ecology, and "community museums" that are open and integrated into the community context, etc., presenting an increasingly holistic new path of cultural heritage protection, and closely interacting and carrying out dialogue with the new trend of international museum development.
"Intangible Cultural Heritage Museum" in Tancheng County, Shandong Province. Photo by Andy Fang
Aiyakang Bird Ecological Museum, Xichang City, Sichuan Province. Photo by Li Jieyi
A record-themed community museum in Chengdu - Tuge Record Museum. Photo by Wang Lei
The museum is the "living room of the city" for international visits, and it is a cultural bond between people in the world. Some scholars refer to cultural areas where museums are concentrated in cities such as Rome, Italy, Paris, France, and London, England, as "museum cities". At present, some cities in China, such as Beijing, Xi'an, Nanjing, etc., are focusing on building "museum cities", which form an east-west echo and have their own cultural characteristics.
The audience visited the "30 Years of Achievements Exhibition of China's Manned Space Engineering" at the National Museum of China. Photo by Tian Yuhao
Beijing, which has comprehensively promoted the construction of a national cultural center and an international exchange center, is a national-level historical and cultural city, with more than 50,1 years of human history, more than 3000,870 years of cultural history, more than 3840,7 years of city building history, and 215 years of capital history, which is a witness to the long history of Chinese civilization. So far, a total of 501,<> immovable cultural relics have been registered in Beijing, including <> world cultural heritages. There are <> registered museums, and state-owned cultural relics collection units have <>.<> million pieces / sets of cultural relics in their collections. It can be said that the quantity and quality of Beijing's cultural relics rank among the top metropolises in the world.
In April 2020, the "Beijing Medium- and Long-term Plan for Promoting the Construction of National Cultural Centers (4-2019)" clearly proposed to "build a museum city with reasonable layout, rich exhibitions and distinctive characteristics". This year, the "Beijing Museum City Construction and Development Plan (2035-2023)" will be released, clarifying the spatial layout of Beijing's "Museum City". The plan proposes to comprehensively sort out the spatial structure and characteristics of Beijing's historical and cultural resources to create a "global living museum".
In May this year, Beijing launched the first Museum Activity Month, focusing on nearly 5 exhibitions and thousands of online cultural relics, and 300 museums jointly held a carnival to comprehensively display the style and charm of museums, making museums an important force for inspiring wisdom for a better life, promoting social well-being and building a sustainable future. The event formed an innovative model that echoes the "International Museum Day" under the background of the construction of "Museum City", and has the mutual learning significance of museum city construction around the world.
"The beauty of each is the beauty of the beauty, the beauty of the beauty, the beauty of the world." As the capital of China, Beijing is striving to build a never-ending museum of the city, inviting international friends to China and Beijing to see cultural relics and read history, explore the commonalities between different civilizations, and promote the sharing of human cultural heritage and mutual understanding and respect among different civilizations. (End)
About the author:
Wang Ming is an associate professor at the School of History, Capital Normal University, the head of the cultural heritage major, the executive director of the Beijing Cultural Heritage Research Center, and the director of the Beijing History Research Association. Mainly engaged in the research of ancient Chinese ritual history, medieval tomb archaeology, Beijing's cultural heritage, especially the Grand Canal heritage, intangible cultural heritage and other fields. He has published more than 40 papers in newspapers and magazines such as "Research on Chinese History", "Archaeology", "Chinese History Series", presided over 2 projects of the National Social Science Foundation, 2 provincial and ministerial projects, and co-edited 6 departments.