Archaeology fever, museum fever, cultural and creative fever... In recent years, everything related to the museum, from "raising in the deep boudoir" to entering the vision of you and me through "cloud exhibition", "cloud live broadcast" and "cloud education", we have met with cultural relics in the clouds, and also walked to the museum to run with it.
With the help of new technical means and the spread effect of the Internet, many museums have long been freed from the old, dull impression and have become young, fashionable, intellectual, and sometimes a little playful.
Behind these phenomena, there are many cultural and creative institutions and the efforts of cultural and creative people, including a cultural and creative institution called Gu Cat. They focused on one thing: making museums popular.
"The method we set for ourselves is to conform to the public in form, and now everyone likes talk shows, and it is not impossible to talk about cultural relics in the way of talk shows." Tang Shiwei, the founder of Gucat, who left the system at the age of 37 to start a business, said so.
Do ancient cats make money? "It's still difficult, but I'm confident, doing something that no one has done, there's a joy of pioneering, the direction is right, just rush with my friends." 」
Tang Shiwei
Founder of Ancient Cat
Graduated from the School of Archaeology, Peking University
Former director of the Institute of Ancient Construction of Chengdu Archaeological Research Institute
After graduating from Peking University, he was "tricked" into repairing ancient buildings
Tang Shiwei went to school in Mianyang in junior high school, because of his excellent results in the Olympiad competition, he was selected to go to the science experimental class in Beijing in high school, and then went straight to Peking University. "Because there is no pressure on the college entrance examination, I like to play the piano and sing in high school, and I also became an editor of the school newspaper, and in the experimental class where science students gather, it seems to be more literary." The university chose the cultural relics architecture major because I think the architecture thing is quite literary, and I am probably suitable. ”
The major of cultural relics and architecture is under the School of Archaeology and Literature of Peking University, when the talents in the ancient architecture industry were not picked up, so this major was urgently established, and tang Shiwei went to the second year of this major. "At that time, I thought that I could do architectural design after learning, but then I found that it was more important to study and understand why a building should be repaired like this and how to protect it."
Young skinny soup teacher
When he graduated from university, the then dean of the Chengdu Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology invited Tang Shiwei to return to Chengdu to work, "He told me, you come, I will let you be the director of the Ancient Construction Institute." "After coming here, he was really the director, because he was the only one in the Ancient Construction Institute." Unwilling to be deceived, I successively returned to Peking University to deceive my brothers and sisters, and later expanded to more than 10 people, becoming a very powerful research team. ”
As a scientific research institution rooted in the protection of local ancient buildings, Tang Shiwei led his friends to devote themselves to the academic research of ancient architecture related issues in Sichuan, using a variety of methods such as anthropological investigation, architectural archaeology research, heritage digitization technology, and published many monographs, proposing contemporary practices for the protection and utilization of precious architectural heritage in Sichuan.
Fat teacher Tang
Tang Shiwei likes his work, but also has some regrets. In 2019, after working for 15 years, he decided to leave the institute at the age of 37 and chose to start a business. Before making this choice, two things were engraved in his mind.
The first occurred in 2011, when Tang Shiwei participated in the joint application project of the ancient Shu State, including the Sanxingdui site, the Jinsha site, and the ship coffin site. "At that time, our dean organized a group of us, including experts invited from Beijing, to lock them up in the hotel for a month and write application materials. At that time, we excavated a lot of the value of these sites, but the things described in the text are unknown to the public, which I think is particularly regrettable. ”
Sanxingdui Bronze Sacred Tree Source/Sanxingdui Museum
The second thing happened in 2013, when there was an ancient architecture enthusiast on Weibo, who read a lot of ancient buildings and read some books, but did not have the basic common sense of academia, so he posted some absolute judgments on the Internet, and soon had a large number of fans. "Some of his views are right, but some are wrong. At that time, I felt that the commanding heights of public opinion, if the correct voice did not occupy, it would definitely be occupied by rumors. ”
Ancient cat mascot
In 2015, Tang Shiwei began to explore the popularization of cultural knowledge. In 2019, he feels that the time is ripe, one is more and more research results, the second is that the demand of the public is getting higher and higher, and the third is the diversification of technical means.
Thus, the ancient cat was born.
Blockbusters, traffic, feelings
The logo of the ancient cat is the Ding character in the oracle bone, which looks like a cat. With the core representing the most powerful artifact in bronze, and the externalized image of the national pet, the mission of the ancient cat is to make the museum popular. "Around the museum +, we hope to make the museum interesting through modern technology, so that everyone likes Chinese culture and cultural relics."
At the beginning, the ancient cat gave the museum an online audio explanation of cultural relics, visitors can scan the code to listen, and established exclusive cooperation with a number of museums, such as Sanxingdui Museum, Dunhuang Museum, Yuanmingyuan Ruins Park, Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum Terracotta Warriors, Chengdu Museum, etc., serving about 100 museums of all sizes.
After that, in response to market demand, GuMao started a digital museum, cloud exhibition and so on.
Sanxingdui Digital Exhibition Hall, Shanxi Ancient Digital Museum
After the outbreak of the epidemic, in order to make up for everyone's regrets, the ancient cat opened all online explanations for free to all users from the first to the fifteenth day of the first month of the first month of 2020, so that everyone can listen to the explanations of related cultural relics such as the Forbidden City, the Terracotta Warriors, dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, Yungang Grottoes, Sanxingdui Museum, Liaoning Provincial Museum, Leshan Giant Buddha, Confucius Museum and so on without leaving home.
Nanjing City Wall Interactive Game, Digital Children's Museum
Since last year, The ancient cat has chatted about cultural relics in the form of fun and relaxed short videos, accumulating more than 500,000 fans on Douyin and B station, and the two platforms have accumulated more than 5 million likes.
At the beginning, in order to attract fans, the video will talk about some hot topics, and then talk about "the most familiar strangers", such as an issue about the Southern Song Dynasty Ancient Street below Chunxi Road, Chengdu people shopping on this street, a visit is more than a thousand years. In 2007, when preparing to repair IFS, the archaeological agency routinely surveyed and found the 5,000 square meter site.
This is the first hit that the ancient cat harvested. In addition to short videos, comics are also one of the ways they present content, such as "Who is the most qualified [Chengdu Spokesperson]", "Ancient Cat Comics| Samsungdui National Treasure Big Coffee Meeting". "The method we set for ourselves is to conform to the public in form, and now everyone likes talk shows, and it is not impossible to talk about cultural relics in the way of talk shows."
This Marco Polo is a bit well-drawn
Last year, Gu Mao began to do children's study courses, "We hope that children will start to understand Chengdu from understanding the history of Chengdu." For example, we do Sanxingdui research, children visit the museum in the morning, do tasks, and in the afternoon they can go to our archaeological base to simulate archaeological excavations. ”
Children draw maps of ancient buildings
Children are building ancient buildings
Some children dug up ivory, how old is one, excited; some children dug up the bronze mask and carefully held it in front of the teacher; some children only dug up a small piece of broken pottery, and the loss was written on the small face.
"We'll tell him that real archaeological work is like this, and that many archaeologists are so obscure that they haven't dug up anything in their lives." Archaeology is not about treasure hunting, it's about figuring out how people used to live, how we came to be, what we've been through. Even if nothing is dug up, and has been dealing with soil all his life, through the soil layers of different ages, archaeologists can deduce what happened to this place before. ”
Research materials
Having done so many things, do ancient cats make money? "It's still difficult, but I'm confident, doing something that no one has done, there's a joy of pioneering, the direction is right, just rush with my friends." 」 This is Tang Shiwei's answer.
For him, the anxiety of starting a business is the norm, and the excitement is short-lived. Excited is that the years of polishing high-quality content has been affirmed by the public and the industry; anxious about how to let the knowledge exporters get the dignity they deserve, "Our team of more than 20 people, master's and doctorate accounted for more than 60%, most of the young people, when the year-end award, I hope to no longer be shy." ”
Ancient cat team friends
For students studying archaeology and history, the ancient cat actually provides a new employment opportunity, hoping that there will be fewer graduates who have changed careers, which is also one of The original intentions of Tang Shiwei's original venture.
Next, the ancient cat will make more cultural and creative products, and really play it while telling the story well.
Ancient Cat Cultural creation collection
Visiting museums is an option for a better life
On May 18 last year, International Museum Day, YOU Chengdu joined hands with 11 cultural institutions to launch a month-long joint project called "Things You Don't Know". Through this event, we see more and more people entering the museum. Among them are young people, there are also 80-year-old elderly people, there are friends living in Chengdu, and there are also fans from outside Chengdu.
The reason for going to the museum is different for everyone, some people out of thirst for knowledge, some people out of self-affirmation of cultural belonging, some people out of curiosity, some people out of herd mentality... In any case, we are reacquainting ourselves with museums and getting to know them.
When you go to the museum to see the exhibition, not everyone should pay attention to the grand narrative, you have your understanding, he has his interpretation.
The screensaver that The ancient cat gave to everyone on New Year's Day 2021
Tang Shiwei also loves to visit museums, but he rarely appreciates cultural relics from an aesthetic point of view, "I will look at it from the perspective of evidence, human development, and the inevitable laws of history, and I don't care about the beauty and ugliness of cultural relics, through one object after another, to make up for the historical events behind my brain." ”
To study history is to study the laws of history, and in this process, we understand a nation, we understand human nature, we understand the people around us, and then we become peaceful, tolerant, and fraternal. "What's happening now may have happened long ago, it's nothing more than repetition, and then the answer is already there."
Sanxingdui bronze figure Photography / Fan Li
Choosing to start a business in Chengdu is no accident for Tang Shiwei. Judging from the observations in recent years alone, in Chengdu, the exhibition volume is large, the exhibition period is as long as several months, and it is not uncommon to link the large exhibitions and special exhibitions with hundreds of thousands of people.
"The city of Chengdu is more flexible, and everyone has basic rules, directions, and entertainment spirit." The ancient cat was born in Chengdu is a good choice, and it has the possibility of becoming bigger and stronger in the future. ”
A teacher once gave Tang Shiwei a picture: The fun of the grass hall lies in idleness. Caotang represents Chengdu, and this teacher means: If you are in Chengdu and do not take advantage of this leisure, you have failed the city.
Idleness is to let you have free time to think, to think about something that seems useless, and in the process, something new will burst out.
I have to say that a lot of creative things grow like weeds, sneak out of the head, bloom without reservation, you have to pay attention to it.
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