In 2022, the total number of museums in China reached 6,565, receiving visitors5.7.8 billion people, more than 90% of museums are free of charge. This is the latest data released by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage of China at the main venue event of the 2023 “May 18 International Museum Day” in China, and it is also a microcosm of the integration of museums into a better life.
The theme of this year’s International Museum Day is “Museums, Sustainability and the Good Life”.
According to Shan Jixiang, president of the Chinese Cultural Heritage Society and the sixth director of the Palace Museum, the main body of visitors and the way of viewing exhibitions in museums today have undergone profound changes, from the past tour groups to families and individuals, especially young people, from the past punch-card tours, to the current in-depth tours, research, etc., many visitors are going to the same museum again and again. “This requires museum practitioners to respond to this trend, open as many exhibition areas as possible, hold more rich exhibitions, and strengthen exhibition interaction to meet the needs of young people of all ages, especially those with a strong desire for knowledge.” ”
In terms of holding exhibitions, China’s major museums have spared no effort. According to statistics, offline exhibitions will be held throughout 20223.40,000 games.
Entering May, thousands of activities with rich content and various forms were planned in various places. For example, for the first time, the Beijing Museum Month was held in Beijing, covering the whole of May, the main venue in Fuzhou launched exhibitions such as “Under the Aerospace of Fu: Cultural Imprints of the Maritime Silk Road”, “Dehua White Porcelain Exhibition” and “Armenian Cultural Treasures of the 19th and 20th Centuries”, and 20 museums in Macao jointly organized the “2023 Macao International Museum Day Carnival”.
Extending the opening hours of museums has also become one of the measures to facilitate the people. The Shanghai Museum recently launched a 24-hour night event in “From Botticelli to Van Gogh: Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Britain”; during the Beijing Museum Activity Month, more than 30 museums actively explored the service mode of delayed opening; on the evening of the 18th, the main venue in Fuzhou will also launch a series of “Museum Night” activities, and the three lanes and seven lanes, Yeshan Spring and Autumn Garden, and the Shangxiahang Historical and Cultural District will be “more beautiful at night”.
In the past, online exhibitions were a backup plan for special periods, but the advantages of online such as fast, detailed, and unrestricted time have been highlighted, and creating a “digital museum” has become a major trend. According to statistics, in 2022, Chinese museums will launch nearly 10,000 online exhibitions. On the 18th, the Palace Museum released a new high-definition digital image of 20,000 pieces of cultural relics in the collection, and the total number of cultural relics in the “Digital Cultural Relics Library” exceeded 100,000 pieces, and at the same time, it also used knowledge graph technology to enhance the ability to retrieve cultural relics; the Shanxi Museum created a series of themed cloud exhibitions of the Yellow River Culture in Shanxi Province on the 18th; and the “Millennium Cultural Context Maritime Silk Road” planned by the Digital Culture and Art Museum of China Central Radio and Television was opened on the same day.
In fact, at a time when large museums are showing their skills, small and medium-sized museums, which account for more than half of the total number of museums in the country, may still face the dilemma of not being well-known enough to attract audiences. At the main venue on the 18th, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage of China launched the “Small and Medium-sized Museums Digital Empowerment Star Plan”, which mainly focuses on the digital construction of small and medium-sized museums, and the first batch of 100 small and medium-sized museums will be selected to help them expand their digital communication methods with technical resources for public welfare, help museums build video accounts and cultural and creative IP development, carry out special digital ability training courses, and promote the sustainable development of small and medium-sized museums.
It is worth mentioning that China has also developed by leaps and bounds in the concept of museum construction. An Laishun, chairman of the International Council of Museums Asia-Pacific Alliance and professor at Shanghai University, said that according to statistics, more than 30 cities in China are planning or starting the construction of “museum cities”. From “building a city with many museums” to “being a city as a museum”, the concept of building a city of museums is changing. In his view, the theme of this year’s International Museum Day is in line with museums.The concept of the construction of the city. Reporter Ying Ni