The list of the first batch of 56 rural museums in Zhejiang has been announced recently, and 4 in Hangzhou have also been selected. Previously, Zhejiang proposed that 1000 rural museums will be built in the province during the “Fourteenth Five Year Plan” period, of which no less than 400 will be built in 2022. As early as the beginning of this year, the newly built “rural museum” was listed as one of the top ten practical projects for people’s livelihood in Zhejiang and Hangzhou.
These rural museums are the epitome of the current excavation and exhibition of Zhejiang local culture. Some of them focus on the sorting and excavation of intangible cultural heritage, such as Hangzhou Jiangnan Cake Art Museum and Nanxun Hubi Culture Museum in Linping District; There are also famous historical sites, such as Shaoxing Lu Xun’s grandmother’s Chaobei Taimen, Daishan Jinweiying Historical Site Exhibition Hall, etc; Some show folk culture, such as the She Nationality Pavilion in Eshan, Tonglu County; There are also traces of time, such as the Memorial Hall of the Western Relocation of Zhejiang University in Jiande, which records a period of years like singing in different regions and shapes, reflecting local conditions.
The theme of the International Museum Day on May 18 this year is “the power of museums”, which means “museums have the ability to change the world around us”. The museum is just a “projector” of historical heritage and a “generator” of contemporary culture. Unlike urban public museums, which have a rich history and culture, rural museums focus more on retaining nostalgia and stimulating empathy. In fact, the relevant ministries and commissions have previously issued the Opinions on Promoting the Revitalization of the Cultural Industry Empowered Countryside, emphasizing the need to “promote the application of more art elements and art elements to rural planning and construction”, in which the construction of rural museums is listed as an important part. The recently released Guidelines for the Construction of Rural Museums in Zhejiang Province (for Trial Implementation) proposed that “focus on the display, dissemination, collection and inheritance of regional historical culture, characteristic culture, revolutionary culture and rural production and life, intangible cultural heritage protection, and industrial development witnesses”; “The exhibition area shall not be less than 100 square meters… the collection shall be more than 50 pieces/group”, and the site selection, theme determination and exhibition requirements shall be clearly defined.
Build a good rural museum to reflect the high taste, but also to tighten the “local flavor”. It should also be noted that the current construction of rural museums is still in the process of breaking the problem. For example, the focus is still more limited to the county level, and it is not enough to go deep into the “last mile” of rural areas; In different degrees, there are homogenization and the tendency of “one side of a thousand museums”. We must strive to overcome the “big and comprehensive” problem and promote it by focusing on the “small and refined”. For example, we should pay attention to historical salvage, make good use of old objects to speak, warm people’s hearts with old times, and tell good stories about the countryside through the exploration of vulgar culture, refining and reshaping the rural spirit, so as to stimulate people’s power. In terms of site selection, it is necessary to live according to the village and vary from village to village, highlight the integration with the construction of beautiful countryside, integrate with the overall style and features of the village and the surrounding environment, and achieve the integration of local typical cultural landscape and local life experience by means of comprehensive protection, utilization and renovation of the existing cultural relics such as the old ancestral hall and the old ancestral home, strive to eliminate the cultural coldness and emotional gap, fully embed into the rural spiritual life, and stimulate endogenous empathy.
In order to build a good rural museum, we should also focus on serving the common prosperity, so as to achieve both “rich pockets” and “rich heads”. In the process of promotion, we will continue to strengthen the proportion of personnel, complement the weaknesses in facility management, collection, exhibition and display, and eliminate the shortcomings of competition, production and “one size fits all”. Efforts should be made to get through the “last mile” of public cultural services of museums, so as to enable culture to revitalize the countryside.
Commentator Tu Jianmin