Public education is one of the indispensable functions of the public cultural service of the mainland art museum, with the increase of the number of public art museums and the improvement of their functions, the public education of the art museum is also constantly pioneering and innovating. Especially in recent years, under the background of epidemic prevention and control, the content and methods of public education in art museums have undergone some obvious changes. Recently, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism officially released the "List of Outstanding Projects of the Art Department of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in 2020-2021", which was selected by experts organized by the Department of Arts, of which 10 outstanding public education projects and 10 outstanding public education nomination projects were selected. What are the new features of these excellent public education programs? Under the background of normalization of epidemic prevention, what kind of enlightenment does the service concept and operation mode of these excellent projects bring to the art museum industry?
Upgrade the service concept
With the development of public education in the mainland, under the needs of the prevention and control of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the art museum continues to explore new models and new possibilities in the field of public education, and the public education projects of many art museums are no longer simply around exhibitions, but around a certain theme, so as to have sustainability and become a permanent brand public education project of the art museum. Tianjin Art Museum's "Silently Telling Chinese Stories – Talking about Beauty in Art Museums" project began as early as 2018. The project is jointly organized by Tianjin Art Museum and Tianjin Haihe Media Center Traffic Broadcasting, introducing Chinese and foreign art knowledge and cultural heritage to the audience, mainly excavating Tianjin's local cultural resources and collections. In the process of implementation, the project has continuously adjusted the content and form according to the feedback of the audience, and has formed three sections: "Talking about beauty in the art museum", "exhibition promotion" and "hot spot tracking", which are combined with offline exhibitions and public education activities through online programs. The Tianjin Art Museum uses radio broadcasting as an extension of the art museum, transcending geographical limitations and assisting in dissemination, so that citizens who cannot visit the museum can also feel art through "listening" and meet cultural needs, which also reflects the humanistic care and responsibility of public welfare venues for people with disabilities, and promotes the fair sharing of cultural resources. Lu Yongxuan, deputy director of Tianjin Art Museum, introduced that as one of the important forms of mass communication, the social impact of the project is most intuitively reflected in the listening rate: it has maintained the top three in 155 Tianjin radio programs for a long time, and has reached the first average listening rate many times. "It plays a subtle role in promoting changes in public perception, psychology and behavior, and in meeting the cultural needs of the people." Lu Yongxuan said.
The Art Museum of China Academy of Art has curated the "'Beauty, in the Mountains, in the Fields, by the Stream' 2021 Rural Aesthetic Education Children's Art Workshop Public Welfare Project". The Art Museum of China Academy of Art, in cooperation with local governments, has taken the initiative to contact rural schools, left-behind children's service centers, public welfare colleges, etc., organized young teachers and graduate volunteers to send folk art, design and art to the countryside, and opened hands-on courses and held lectures for primary and secondary school students. At the same time, through the training of rural art teachers and the pairing interaction with left-behind children in remote areas, more than 20 activities have been carried out since the second half of 2021. It can be said that the epidemic has spawned a new form of public art education in the art museum of the China Academy of Art, and has also expanded the spatial concept of the art museum, which is no longer limited to daily exhibitions, but fully integrated with the object of public education, sending art to the countryside, committing to cultural township construction, and providing spiritual assistance for the construction of a new socialist countryside.
In addition, the "2020 "Beauty Talk" of the Shaanxi Provincial Museum of Fine Arts is an academic and public welfare lecture series activity, which is held once a month and disseminated in an all-round way in three ways: live lectures, online live broadcast and print media, and has been held for more than 10 sessions so far, realizing the year-round coverage of public art education activities and continuing. This kind of public education activity not only has on-site close communication, but also breaks through geographical limitations, gives full play to the advantages of the network, maximizes the educational function of the art museum, and provides high-quality services for the public.
Expand service offerings
Since the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, art museums as the forefront of public culture have been first challenged, and how to "break through" to find new ways and means of public education has become an important challenge facing art museums.
▲ "Big Hands Holding Small Hands" New Year special children's education activities in the Year of the Ox: The "Big Hands Holding Small Hands" column group of the Central Radio and Television Corporation walked into the New Year Exhibition of the National Art Museum of China's "Beauty in Cultivation"
In order to cope with the crisis caused by the epidemic, many art museums have begun to expand the form of services. It can be seen from the outstanding public education projects selected this time that most of them reflect the trend of online transformation. For example, the National Art Museum of China and the "Big Hands Holding Small Hands" column group of the Sports youth center of the Central Radio and Television Corporation held a special children's education activity for the New Year of the Ox, and Wu Weishan, director of the National Art Museum of China, and Ju Ping, the host, led more than 30 small audiences into the "Beauty in Cultivation" New Year Exhibition specially planned by the National Art Museum of China, discovered the spring of cultivation, and felt the beauty of art. The event was carried out in the form of "exhibition hall activities + network synchronization + television broadcast", and the number of audience participants exceeded 2.86 million.
▲ Zhu Yingren, a veteran professor at the China Academy of Art, was present at the academic forum of the series "Viewing Objects: The Creation and Research of Chinese Flower and Bird Paintings"
Zhejiang Art Museum's "Viewing Objects: The Creation and Research of Chinese Flower and Bird Painting" series of research forums, in a month's time, held 33 consecutive blockbuster lectures, invited 33 important scholars, around huang Binhong, Qi Baishi, Wu Maozhi, Zhang Shuxu, Wang Zengqi's flower and bird painting creation, to discuss the creation of Chinese flower and bird painting and its related research, thinking about the philosophy, aesthetics and literature closely related to flower and bird painting. On the occasion of the series of academic forums, due to the many restrictions of epidemic prevention and control, many experts and scholars can not visit the scene of the series of forums, and the art museum adopts the latest digital technology in a timely manner, opens an exclusive live broadcast room in the art museum, adopts a combination of online and offline methods, and goes online at 19:00 every day to create a cloud art museum night. The person in charge of the Public Education Department of the museum said that because the series of "Viewing Objects: The Creation and Research of Chinese Flower and Bird Paintings" is an extreme challenge to the planning and execution of public education activities of the art museum, it is necessary to break through the limitations of region and time, and because of the daily broadcast method, it is necessary to coordinate the schedule arrangement, courseware preparation and live test of all experts and scholars, which is a "public education power test" for the art museum. In addition, the series of forums also officially published a collection of papers of the same name, which became a widely influential one that had a wide impact on both the public and the academic community.
▲ Shanghai West Bund Art Museum Public Education Activity "Architect on the Finger of the Bookshelf"
In order to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Cpc, the "Entering the Palace of Arts - Learning the History of the Party and Saying the "Four Histories"" project, sponsored by the China Art Palace, the Vocational Education Office of the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission and the Shanghai Secondary Vocational Art Education Professional Committee, invited Shanghai "post-00s" secondary vocational students to independently plan, shoot and produce a series of micro-videos on the theme. The project relies on the Yangtze River Delta and vocational education counterparts to support the four major alliances, and the points where students participate in the shooting extend from Shanghai to Jiaxing, Zunyi, Guangzhou, Kunming, Hangzhou, Beijing and other places, covering the relevant areas of major party history events, and the local middle and high vocational schools have successively joined the project team, and the linkage of many places has formed a huge radiation effect. In the end, 100 episodes of "Entering the Art Palace - Learning the History of the Party and Saying the "Four Histories"" were finally produced, and after the launch of WeChat public accounts such as the China Art Palace, Culture Shanghai Cloud, Shanghai Vocational Education Online, and platforms such as Bilibili and Douyin, it was viewed more than 1.5 million times. With its advantages of fast dissemination speed and wide range, this series of micro-videos has become an innovative expression of the new era of young people's learning history, and has also become a more effective form of promoting art education, setting off a wave of "four histories" of aesthetic education on the whole network.
The "Story of Spring" series of public education activities of Shenzhen Art Museum has organized and planned a number of public education activities around the characteristic collections of Shenzhen Art Museum and the annual special exhibition of the 40th anniversary of the establishment of Shenzhen Special Economic Zone. These series of activities not only constitute a relatively complete system, but each part of it also has its own innovation.
▲ Woodcut prints of Yichun Art Museum's "Beauty Education into Campus" series of activities "Scenery by the Bridge"
It is worth noting that many prefectural and municipal art museums have been shortlisted for the list of public education projects this time, such as Yichun Art Museum, Tengzhou Art Museum, Yueyang Art Museum, and the public education activities of these art museums can also be remarkable. For example, since June 2020, Yichun Art Museum has joined hands with Yichun Experimental Primary School to carry out the "Aesthetic Education into Campus" series of public education brand activities of museum-school cooperation. In the form of normalized teaching of "one theme and two lessons" every month, the activity realizes the orderly development of extracurricular printmaking research activities and provides students with a more comprehensive aesthetic education teaching and practice space. With the theme of "Aesthetic Education Poverty Alleviation into the Countryside", tengzhou Art Museum's series of public education activities have been walked into campuses, villages and general branch stations in poor areas 29 times, innovating cultural communication methods with "aesthetic education poverty alleviation into the countryside", enriching the content of cultural poverty alleviation, providing more encouragement and help, and letting the traditional meaning and national spirit penetrate into the hearts of more students and villagers. In addition, private art museums have also been included in the list of winners for their unique public education activities. For example, the "Magic Mic Little Guide" initiated by Shanghai Fosun Art Center, Chengdu Luhu · A4 Art Museum "iSTART Children's Art Festival" and so on.
Expand coverage
With the continuous deepening of public education services, art museums are also constantly thinking: how to better reflect the publicity of art museums? The answer is to keep expanding your audience. The public education of art museums is no longer simply a certain field such as art lovers and children, but has a broader coverage.
▲ Shandong Art Museum", "Our Craftsmanship - Exploring and Experiencing handicraft workshop" activity site
In recent years, the aesthetic education work of Shandong Art Museum has continuously upgraded its service concept and methods, combined with its own positioning, brand, influence and other advantages, and gradually explored a relatively complete set of public education activity system. After the outbreak of the epidemic, in response to the special situation in the special period, Shandong Art Museum launched the "Art Week" activity - in every open day of Shandong Art Museum, there are high-quality Public Education activities for the public. For example, "The head of the park has an appointment" is set on Tuesday, "Art Sunset Red" is arranged on Wednesday, "Adult Sketching and Oil Painting Public Welfare Class" is arranged on Thursday and Friday, "Art Friday" is set on Friday, "Exploration Experience Handicraft Workshop" is set on Saturday, and "Weekend Team Reception" is sunday. The activities are rich and varied, spanning many groups, and the educational purposes and teaching forms are different. Various forms of aesthetic education courses basically achieve comprehensive coverage of aesthetic education from young children to the elderly. Zhao Jun, director of the Public Education Department of Shandong Art Museum, said, "The public education activities of Shandong Art Museum are the main idea to achieve aesthetic education for the whole people, facing the whole society, pure public welfare, covering all age levels, trying our best to meet the aesthetic education needs of different audiences, ensuring that the activities are constantly filed and the service does not stop." ”
Hubei Art Museum's "Smelling the Sound and Remembering the River City" integrated media public education project combines wuhan local cultural elements and the classic collection works of Hubei Art Museum, and through the artistic synesthesia of music and painting, produces and launches 10 themes of the media culture education project launched on radio, television, Internet and other platforms. The coverage involves countries and regions around the world, with a series of interactive activities such as audience participation, submission, topic discussion, etc., so that art can be promoted and disseminated without time and space restrictions, and open up a dialogue window for the art museum to communicate with the audience.
The 2021 "Sunshine Aesthetic Education Program" of Suzhou Art Museum is aimed at people with mental disabilities. The "Sunshine Aesthetic Education Program" project held throughout the year has a total of five phases, which explores the multi-faceted application of "art therapy" in the field of public culture, and also allows special groups such as mentally disabled people to enjoy better and effective aesthetic education services.
The Guangdong Museum of Art's "Watching Exhibitions Together: Expert Guided Tours Series" invites experts, scholars, artists, curatorial teams and education team members to guide and share with the public. The event covered children, teenagers, adults, families, the public, students and other groups, benefiting a total of 50,000 people. It can be seen that under the impetus of the selection of excellent projects of national art museums, art museums at all levels throughout the country are participating in public education with a positive attitude and excellent projects, and these excellent projects also use their own exploration and practice to promote the professional construction and interconnection of public education work of mainland art museums in the context of normalization of epidemic prevention and control, enhance the social aesthetic education function of art museums as cultural and educational institutions, and give play to the social value of cultural inheritance and promotion of art museums. In the educational development of the new era art museum, we have explored a new path.
May 1, 2022 China Culture Daily
The first edition featured a special report
"Under the Epidemic Situation, Art Museum Catholic Education Explores New Paths"
Editor-in-charge: Chen Xiaoyue