On publicity of the original exhibition "Starry Sky Illumination" by Shanghai Science & Technology Museum / SHEN Yan

Abstract Exhibition is the core of museum operation, and the foundation of its educational function. as an important part of museums display, temporary exhibition has the advantages of theme-distinctiveness, time-effectiveness, and content-creativity, which adds to the glory of the permanent exhibitions in width and depth. it can attract different kinds of visitors to walk into the museum repeatedly and satisfy their multiple demands for science and culture. This article takes "Starry Sky Illumination", the original exhibition carried out by Shanghai science & technology museum as an example, in order to discuss its publicity and promotion work, introduce the ways and methods used in its propaganda, and probe into the publicity pattern of temporary exhibitions. the publicity and promotion of the temporary exhibition, especially original exhibition, plays an important role in making its influence stronger, reinforcing the connection between the museum and visitors and reflecting the foresight in related fields. Keywords temporary exhibitions, original, publicity 0 Introduction

The temporary exhibition is one of the regular activities in the museum and it can enrich the permanent exhibitions and attract more and more visitors to come into the museum. If the permanent exhibition is considered as the foundation of the museum, the temporary exhibition should be the vitality of it. In order to make the exhibition and the museum more popular, it's necessary to pay more attention to the publicity and promotion work. In recent years, a large number of temporary exhibitions have become highly creative and be on different kinds of museums, among which can be roughly divided into two types: introduced ones and original ones. Whether the exhibition is permanent or temporary, a good curator should have professional knowledge, aesthetic foundation and distinctive point of view. He, to some extent, has the authority to choose the theme and exhibits. Moreover, he should also be able to express his ideas to visitors, provide a bridge to connect exhibits and visitors together and create a powerful context in between. There are a lot of ways on the publicity of the temporary exhibition, such as explanatory words, pictures and multimedia devices. Basing on the participation of the original exhibition

"Starry Sky Illumination" by Shanghai Science & Technology Museum, author will summarize the methods used in the exhibition's publicity and promotion, as well as the advantages and disadvantages, hoping to give some suggestions.

1 Brief introduction of the exhibition "Starry sky illumination"

Based on the theme of astronomy, "Starry Sky Illumination" uses top astronomical photographs, rare meteorites and advanced multimedia devices to bring the beauty of the night sky to visitors. The whole exhibition has six parts. They are "China under the Stars": photos of the starry sky taken in China; "One World, One Sky": photos of the starry sky taken all over the world; "Starry Night Time-lapse": a time-lapse video showing the movement of the stars; "A Portrait of Celestial Bodies": photos of deep sky objects; "Inner Cosmos" and "Digital Sky": immersive experience of the starry sky and the outer space. Besides, it also displays astronomical specimens

— meteorites and artworks Suzhou embroidery of the

— stars and nebulae, all together give visitors a visual feast of both science and art.

2 Methods used in the publicity of the exhibition

Publicity can hardly be carried out without any carriers. During the promotion of the exhibition "Starry Sky Illumination", the team mainly uses two types of carriers —" people" and "objects" and try to combine them together to maximize their strengths. 2.1 Publicity based on person

The team plays an important role in the exhibition planning and performing, as well as publicity and promotion. They wrote the text, searched for the highlighted news, chose the publicity channels and discussed the publicity plan. Since the team members know most of the theme, the content and the display of the exhibition, they are best qualified to be in charge of the designing and confirming the whole publicity work.

There were other departments cooperating with the team on the publicity. For example, the News and Information Center helped to contact journalists from newspaper, television and network, built up few publicity lines. The Exhibition Educational Service Department published popular science articles in astronomy and held lectures and salons, facilitates the scientific publicity of the exhibition from a scientific perspective. The Office helped with the preparation of the opening ceremony and exchanges, expanding the publicity impact both at home and abroad. During the operation of the exhibition, a group of volunteers were also recruited. They wrote feelings in-service and post pictures on Wechat moments, helping to enforce the publicity effort to some extent. 2.2 Publicity based on objects

If the exhibit features a strong personality, rich backgrounds and powers, it can be used as a best publicity carrier. It has great value from various fields, such as science, literature, art, anthropology, and so on. The publicity can introduce the exhibition to visitors from these different perspectives. "Starry Sky Illumination" brings in many works and devices from abroad as the highlights of the exhibition. They should also be the key points for promoting since they can arouse visitors' interests easier. Therefore, when introducing the Super Megastar (figure 1), the team intensifies its two features: "the most advanced man-made night sky projector on earth" and "the first-time landing in China", makes them into the Suzhou embroidery (figure 2) for the starry sky products, which offers a blend of science and art. In addition, the team also borrows ideas from other exhibits to promote the publicity, like top astronomical photography works, rare but realistic meteorites and visible astronomical data.

Besides, posters, flags, invitation letter, poster foldouts are also used as publicity carriers in the mu