Bringing past into present with tech
Museums across China dazzling visitors with 3D projections and fashionable gifts for sale
2,000+ exhibitions launched online by museums across China
NANJING — Three-dimensional holographic images are seen by many as belonging to the realm of science fiction, but for Wei Xuyao, the same effect can be achieved in museum exhibitions without 3D glasses.
Wei started his business in Nanjing, East China’s Jiangsu province, in 2013. His company is focused on developing holographic projection technology for exhibitions.
“Integrating technologies with traditional culture can create a huge market,” he said.
Last year, the company completed a project that brought alive a collection of images of Confucius at one of the most famous scenic spots in Nanjing.
“We used holographic projectors to beam 3D images of Confucius into the air making the ancient scholar even ‘flutter’,” Wei said.
Innovations like this are transforming traditional exhibitions and making Chinese museums more diverse, he added, noting that the trend caters to the expectations of young people.
“Chinese cities boast a large number of museums, which exude the charm of traditional culture. But they need to rely more on trendy technologies to stand out and attract the public, especially the younger generation,” said Gao Ge, deputy secretary-general of the National Culture and Technology Innovation Service Alliance.
Themed “Museums for Equality: Diversity and Inclusion”, this year’s campaign for International Museum Day on May 18 included special activities held across China. Featuring advanced technology, the events built new platforms for communication between museums and the public.
In collaboration with Xinhua
News Agency, the National Cultural Heritage Administration launched a platform to show the best of the online exhibitions in China’s museums at the opening ceremony on Monday in Nanjing, the main venue.
Museums in Beijing are also driving audiences to online collections with more than 90 themed events rolled out in concert with International Museum Day, including 50 cloud exhibitions and 15 livestreaming shows.
The Beijing-based memorial hall of Xu Beihong (1895-1953), a renowned Chinese painter, launched an online exhibition last Friday. To the surprise of Zhang Yuqing, a docent at the memorial hall, her livestream was viewed by nearly 2.9 million people within 90 minutes.
“Livestreaming has given us a new way to provide cultural services for the public and it has expanded the role of museums in social education,” said Li Qing, deputy curator of the memorial hall.
Statistics show that more than 2,000 online exhibitions were launched by museums across China during the COVID-19 outbreak. The total number of views during the Spring Festival holiday exceeded 5 billion.
To popularize Nanjing brocade, an intangible cultural heritage item, the Jiangnan Silk Culture Museum in Jiangsu carried out an exhibition project using virtual reality.
Audiences can put together more than 1,000 parts of the brocade loom like a jigsaw puzzle when they wear VR glasses, said Geng Qi, curator of the museum. She added that this allows people to learn the names and roles of each part in an entertaining way.
For Chinese museums, which are striving to get closer to visitors, being more interactive also matters.
The Imperial Examination Museum in Nanjing began using interactive games, including repairing cracked porcelain and sampling Peking Opera makeup on International Museum Day, as a way of satisfying the diverse needs of visitors.
“My kids love these interactions and it can help cultivate their interest in museums,” said Liu Lin, a Nanjing resident who often takes her children to local museums.
City of museums
In China, more than 20 cities have put forward the concept of building a “city of museums”. This includes Shanghai that took the lead in proposing the construction of 100 museums in 2001, and Beijing, which now boasts 187 registered museums.
To build a city of museums is an important task to develop Beijing into a national cultural center, said Chen Mingjie, director of the Beijing Administration of Cultural Heritage.
In the eyes of An Laishun, vicepresident of the International Council of Museums, the capital needs to upgrade a number of museums that represent its history, culture, science and technology. This would build a more diverse, balanced and inclusive museum system.
The development of cultural and creative products has also contributed to the boom of museums in cities across China. More Chinese people are choosing to purchase souvenirs from museums after their visits, like “bringing an artifact back home”.
In 2019, the Suzhou Museum launched nearly 300 creative products including lotus-shaped cups and vase fridge magnets. This led to their sales volume surpassing 32 million yuan ($4.5 million), up 50 percent year-on-year.
By the end of 2019, there were 5,535 registered museums nationwide. The number of visits to museums across China increased to 1.23 billion last year, according to Liu Yuzhu, head of the NCHA.
“Equality has become a distinctive characteristic of the development of Chinese museums, while innovation has accelerated their modernization and intellectualization,” Liu said.