Museums from around world plan joint show

Eighteen national-level museums are to join hands in a major cultural relics exhibition next year in Beijing to promote better understanding of different civilizations.

The plan was announced during a two-day conference of the International Alliance of Museums of the Silk Road, which wrapped up on Sunday in Fuzhou, Fujian province.

Huang Zhenchun, secretary-general of the alliance and also deputy director of the National Museum of China in Beijing, announced that the exhibition will open in the museum in March.

The Silk Road was an ancient Eurasian network of trade routes that gradually developed since China’s Western Han Dynasty (202 BC-AD 24). And its maritime counterpart also roughly appeared during the same period.

“The exhibits will reflect the history of trade, cultural communication, spread of technology, and the mutual influence of lifestyle and fine arts,” he said. “The dialogues between ancient civilizations will offer reference for people today.”

The alliance, a nongovernmental and nonprofit organization, was founded in Beijing on May 18, 2017 — International Museum Day — and is now hosted by the National Museum of China.

Some 157 museums and institutes involved in cultural heritage protection, including 111 from China, have joined the alliance.

Follow-up editions of the exhibition will be held every two years, Huang said.

Bojana Boric Breskovic, director of the National Museum in Belgrade, Serbia, said: “The exhibition will enable people to have a new view of the friendly relationship between Serbia and China. It’s in the two peoples’ interests.

“We have a wide collection of archaeological and artistic items, from prehistory to the modern age,” she said, adding that the half-million artifacts in the museum offer abundant choices for the major exhibition in Beijing.

Breskovic was among four foreign museum directors who attended the conference in Fuzhou and were newly elected as vice-presidents of the executive council of the alliance. The other three are directors of the national museums of Myanmar, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.

An official website of the alliance www.musesilkroad.org was activated on Saturday to facilitate operation of the group and applications from more institutes. The second conference of the alliance will be held in Beijing in November 2020.