Reporter Shi Fang, Yao Xueqing, and Zhang Danhua
Wang Shen (left) explained the ancient bell casting technology to primary school students through the gypsum bell mold. Photo courtesy of the interviewee
Zhu Xiaoxue is inspecting the status of cultural relics in the exhibition line. Photo by Jing Ran
Hu Zhongya (left) and members of the curatorial team discuss the display of cultural relics at the Shaanxi History Museum. Wu Chao
A museum is a big school. Museums carry historical memories and inherit a long cultural context. In recent years, young people have played an increasingly important role in the improvement of museum quality, curation, and cultural relics protection, injecting youthful vitality into the development of museums. The reporter interviewed several young people who devoted themselves to the museum career and listened to their stories of struggle.
-- The editor
Wang Shen:
"Only by telling the stories behind cultural relics can we attract more people to museums"
"There are many types of ancient clocks, which can be divided into more clocks, morning bells, altar and temple bells according to the use occasions and uses...... "Ancient Rhyme Bells" basic exhibition hall of the Ancient Bell Museum of Beijing Big Bell Temple, Wang Shen spoke devotedly, and the audience around him listened attentively.
Wang Shen, 32, is the museum's deputy director of the business department and has been working here for nearly 10 years. The Great Bell Temple Ancient Bell Museum is a special museum that collects, exhibits, and studies the cultural relics of ancient Chinese bells and bells.
"Only by telling the stories behind the cultural relics can we attract more people to the museum. Wang Shen was deeply touched. When writing the explanation of the basic display of "Ancient Rhyme Bells", he consulted more than 100 documents, deeply excavated the stories of cultural relics, and revised the speech of more than 30,000 words more than 10 times. In the exhibition hall of "Reading the Ancient Bell Forest", there is a replica of the iron bell of the Geyuan Temple, also known as the "Flying Fox Bell". Wang Shen consulted the "History of Liao", "Guangchang County Chronicles" and other materials, and found that this big bell came from Laiyuan, Hebei (formerly known as Guangchang), located in the ancient times "Taihang Eight Mountains" one of the "Flying Fox", the local road is dangerous, people describe only the Flying Fox can pass, so there is a "Flying Fox" said. During the explanation, Wang Shen talked about the origin of the name of the "Flying Fox Bell" from the casting process and use of the iron clock, and the audience was full of interest.
As a narrator, Wang Shen has participated in the recording of programs such as "This is Beijing", "The Treasure of the Town" and "Beijing in Cultural Relics". During a live broadcast of Museum Day, millions of viewers were able to learn about ancient Chinese bell culture.
Ancient bell casting is not only the technique of gold and fire, but also the art of form and sound. An ancient bell with exquisite shape and pure sound integrates the achievements of ancient materials science, chemistry, physics, acoustics, aesthetics and other disciplines. Wang Shen and his colleagues carefully designed the "Sound of Bells" course for teenagers, and stimulated the interest of young audiences in exploring bell culture through 10 links, such as finding, knocking, and counting. Listen to the sound of different bells such as the Yongle Bell, learn to play a piece with a sheep's horn chime, observe the differences in the shape of ancient bells in different regions, and make a small gypsum clock...... As soon as the event was launched, it was very popular with young people, and the reservation quota was often "seconds", and there was a rare hot scene in the museum.
To tell the story of cultural relics well, scientific research is indispensable. Through field research in Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei and other places, Wang Shen and his colleagues collected nearly 10,000 pieces of information on ancient bell cultural relics in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. The Ancient Bell Museum of the Great Bell Temple is established by relying on the ancient buildings of Juesheng Temple, a national key cultural relics protection unit, but there are relatively few studies on Juesheng Temple at present. Wang Shen and his colleagues went to the First Historical Archives of China to consult a large number of historical materials, copied more than 1,000 copies of archival materials, hundreds of thousands of words, and successively participated in the "Research on the Historical Function of the Ancient Bell Museum of the Great Bell Temple (Juesheng Temple)" and "Research on the Ancient Architectural Painting of Juesheng Temple (Phase I)", which laid the foundation for the protection and utilization of the ancient buildings of Juesheng Temple.
The bronze bell of Yongle in the Ming Dynasty is the treasure of the town hall, and there are many inscriptions on it. When Wang Shen's research group was conducting research on the Yongle Bell, due to the huge size of the bell, the space in the bell tower was narrow, and large equipment could not enter. In addition, the bell frame and the building beam frame are criss-crossed, resulting in some inscriptions being blocked, which affects the image acquisition.
"We have come up with a lot of ways to use ladders of different heights, movable scaffolding, and cameras with different functions to successfully collect more than 3,000 images of all the inscriptions of the bell. Wang Shen said that after research, we found that there were differences between the content of the inscription and the handed down version, as well as the mixing of orthodox and vulgar characters, which filled the gap in related research.
Zhu Xiaoxue:
"Museum exhibitions should not be cold and dogmatic, but should be alive and warm."
Using a pen in three colors, red, black, and yellow, he revised and adjusted the curatorial text on dozens of pages thick, and turned on the computer, wrote a "letter of borrowing from a cultural relics dealer", sent it to the brother museum, and updated the list of cultural relics...... At present, Zhu Xiaoxue, deputy director of the comprehensive business department of Nanjing Museum, Jiangsu Province, is preparing for the "Special Exhibition on the History and Culture of the Northern and Southern Dynasties", which will be officially exhibited in July this year.
Zhu Xiaoxue, born in 1988 and graduated from Chinese University with a major in ancient Chinese history, is also related to her major in leading the planning of this special exhibition. "From the Han Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty, Chinese civilization has developed to a peak, which is through the eclecticism, integration and mutual learning of different ethnic groups and different regional cultures. Among them, the history of the Northern and Southern Dynasties is relatively short and not well known to the public, but it has a profound impact on Nanjing, the ancient capital of the Six Dynasties, and on the development of Chinese civilization. Zhu Xiaoxue said that the purpose of holding the exhibition is to make this period of history better "seen".
In her opinion, "museum exhibitions should not be cold and dogmatic, but should be vivid and warm, and become a bridge between visitors and history and culture." In order to achieve this goal, she deeply studied academic monographs such as "Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, Tang and Song Archaeological Manuscripts", "Northern Wei Pingcheng Era", "Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties Historical Treatises" and other academic monographs.
What kind of cultural relics are suitable for exhibition?" It is planned to exhibit nearly 200 cultural relics, and the exhibits of the Southern Dynasties rely on nearly 100 cultural relics unearthed in Nanjing, and the exhibits of the Northern Dynasties will be borrowed from various places. Cultural relics and words should not be 'two skins', cultural relics and cultural relics, cultural relics and texts should be able to 'talk', so that visitors can travel through time and space and touch this history. Another thing that Zhu Xiaoxue is busy with is the borrowing of cultural relics. To know what artifacts are on display, where they are, and whether they are on display, the curator needs to not only collect information about the exhibition from the museum's catalogue, but also learn about their past and present life from the academic journals they subscribe to.
In order to tell the story of cultural relics, Zhu Xiaoxue consulted archaeological information and "took a fancy to" a group of portrait bricks of the Southern Dynasties, which was initially thought to be in the Changzhou Museum, but after tracking, it was found in the Wujin District Museum of Changzhou City. "This cultural relic has distinctive regional characteristics of the Southern Dynasties, showing the inheritance and innovation of Chinese civilization during the Southern Dynasties. We've written a letter of loan and plan to communicate with each other in the near future, but we're ready – there are alternatives to the same type of artifacts in the museum. Zhu Xiaoxue said.
In the Nanjing Museum, the "Chinese Dragon-Jiachen New Year Exhibition" just held was also planned by Zhu Xiaoxue and her colleagues. The Zodiac Exhibition is a common theme exhibition in the "Spring Festival stalls" of various museums, how to be better in the competition on the same stage? Zhu Xiaoxue's secret is "new".
First of all, artifacts are "new". "We build on our collections, digging up artifacts that are rarely seen or never exhibited, and bringing to life the sleeping artifacts in the storeroom. Zhu Xiaoxue said that it is not enough to have exhibits, and the creativity to attract young people comes from the interactive links containing ingenuity: there is a "zodiac carousel" in the eye-catching position of the preface hall, which corresponds to the legend of the twelve hours and the twelve zodiac signs, so that visitors of different genera have a sense of experience; "Stamping check-in point", the designer created a graphic stamp for the Year of the Dragon for visitors to print on the stickers in the exhibition hall to express their New Year blessings, or they can be printed in a notebook to take home.
It is worth mentioning that there is a photo wall with the theme of "Searching for the Dragon" in the tail hall, on which is the "dragon" in the museum - the museum itself is an ancient building, and the kissing beast on the roof, the shop head on the gate, and the brick carving on the eight-character wall are full of "dragon" elements, waiting for visitors to explore and discover. "Through this 'easter egg', the exhibition extends from the exhibition hall to the outside of the exhibition hall, enhancing the connection between the youth and the museum. Zhu Xiaoxue proudly said that the number of visitors during the Lunar New Year exhibition increased by 60% compared with expectations, and the museum ushered in a good start.
In Zhu Xiaoxue's department, curators with an average age of 34 are constantly using their creativity to activate the novelty of museum exhibitions. Last year, more than 30 million people visited museums in Nanjing. "We hope that through our efforts, more people will fall in love with museums. Zhu Xiaoxue said.
Hu Zhongya:
"Let the excellent traditional Chinese culture be widely disseminated in a rich and three-dimensional form"
"Through prehistoric jade, we understand the spiritual world of our ancestors. But did you know that these jade artifacts are also the key to solving the mystery of the functioning of prehistoric society? Click on the WeChat public account of Shaanxi History Museum and open the series of audios of "Listening to the Little Sister Talking about Beautiful Jade", and Hu Zhongya's beautiful and clear voice came out of the mobile phone.
Hu Zhongya, a 35-year-old graduate of Northwest University majoring in archaeology, is a librarian and deputy director of the scientific research department of the Shaanxi History Museum. In recent years, Hu Zhongya has participated as a key member in the "Early China" series of exhibitions planned and implemented by the Shaanxi History Museum to showcase the achievements of the Chinese Civilization Exploration Project.
After more than 20 years of continuous and in-depth research, the Chinese Civilization Exploration Project, launched in 2001, has achieved a series of fruitful results, which have proved the millions of years of human history, 10,000 years of cultural history and more than 5,000 years of civilization history in the mainland.
In order to present such a grand process of prehistoric civilization to the public in a comprehensive, in-depth and multi-dimensional way through the form of exhibitions, under the leadership of his predecessors, Hu Zhongya participated in the planning of the "Early China" series of exhibitions, through the three perspectives of painted pottery, jade and metallurgy in the three exhibitions of "Painted Pottery - China", "Jade Yun - Kyushu" and "Jijin - China", interpreting the great process of the origin and early development of Chinese civilization in turn.
"The main job of my content design team is to write the text of the exhibition outline, including the selection of exhibited artefacts, the text and diagrams on the exhibition panels, etc. Hu Zhongya said. The outline of the exhibition was finalized after several rounds of argumentation by experts in different fields such as archaeology and exhibition. After that, Hu Zhongya needed to prepare the cultural relics according to the outline, bid for the exhibition design company, and contact the cultural relics transportation company.
In order to expand the dissemination and influence of the exhibition, Hu Zhongya and his colleagues also planned a wealth of sub-projects such as academic, educational, and cultural creativity. For example, in the in-depth interpretation of the relevant exhibition themes, she has invited nearly 40 top scholars in the academic field according to the details involved in the exhibition outline. In order to allow the audience to not only see but also listen, after the exhibition began, Hu Zhongya and his teammates wrote an audio text together, "hoping to systematically explain the cultural connotations of painted pottery and jade to the audience from shallow to deep." In the end, they launched 12 issues of "Listening to the Little Sister Talking about Painted Pottery" and 10 issues of "Listening to the Little Sister Talking about Beautiful Jade" series of audios during the exhibition period.
Hu Zhongya likes to use the term "historical and cultural ferryman" to define his work. "Museums have unique educational resources centered on cultural relics, and we should make good use of this valuable resource to make the excellent traditional Chinese culture widely disseminated in a rich and three-dimensional form. Hu Zhongya said.
Typography: Zhang Fangman
People's Daily (2024-04-14 05 Edition)