In the latest in our series of interviews with international museum professionals, we explore the best digital practices of Chinese museums and galleries.
Huaiyuan (Robert) Ren, History and Philosophy of Art Student at the University of Kent and Student and Emerging Professionals Representative at ICOM UK, interviews Zhao Zhiming, Vic President of Shanxi Museum in China.
HR: Where do you work and what is your current position?
ZZ: Hello, I am the vice president of Shanxi Museum, Zhao Zhiming. Mainly I’m responsible for the collection research, exhibition display, museum information and other works.
HR: Please introduce the online/digital practices that your museum has been doing since the post-pandemic era.
ZZ: Speaking of the digital construction of museums, Shanxi Museum established its Information and Network Department in 2004 and started the digital construction successively. Actually, there isn’t a big difference in our museum’s digitization works before and after COVID-19. The theme of International Museum Day in May 2021 is: The Future of Museums: Recover and Reimagine, digital construction is the main axis and engine in this process.
In terms of our museum, we can say that the digital construction is coming across a period of opportunities, because through the encounters of museums in the pandemic, many people have learnt the role of digitalization, in other words, the pandemic has highlighted the importance of museum digitalization.
To maximize the integration of existing digital resources, realize the digitalization and visualization of museum exhibitions, fine collections, relevant knowledge and other content, aiming to use exhibition resources to build online exhibitions, and provide safe and convenient online services for the public through platforms such as “one web and two apps” (Museum website, Wechat, Weibo). In the digital practices during the pandemic, we have compiled a list of some digital resources, including online exhibition, virtual exhibition hall, 3D collections display, cultural and museology courses, other activities and lectures:
After the normalization of the pandemic restrictions, the original consumption model suffered a huge impact, but the new business forms and models based on digital technology supported the rapid opposite trend changes, and the potential is huge. While cultural consumption has become a new feature under the current situation. Shanxi Museum has made great efforts to promote online cultural and creative services, promoting the integration of online and offline development of Shanxi tourism and cultural communication, and continuously promoting the expansion and quality of new consumption models. In the post-pandemic era, Shanxi Museum attaches more importance to the use of digital networks for publicity and promotion of cultural and creative products: the opening of online shops, the internet flow support of Tic-Tok, and the interaction between Wechat and Weibo and the audience’s comments are all supportive and boosting to the cultural and creative work. In June this year, we launched a new ice cream product which shape was based on the most iconic collection of our museum, the Bird shaped Zun (Wine Vessel), which quickly became an Internet celebrity.
To sum up, this short-notice reaction to the pandemic shows that the online digital resources produced by Shanxi Museum over the years are still quite abundant, but they still need further improvement on their variety and quality.
HR: How is your museum interacting and connecting with the public under the influence of the pandemic?
ZZ: Shanxi Museum has launched a combination of online and offline communication platforms to interact with the public. When the exhibitions are difficult to open to the public, we moved them online, launching “cloud exhibitions” in the “One wed and two apps” platform, so that the majority of the audience can “enjoy exhibitions whilst staying in”.
We also regularly promote live broadcast activities relating to current exhibitions, which fully combined cultural relic interpretation, expert’s comments and netizens’ interaction, and achieved a very good dissemination effect. Shanxi Museum has also carried out inter-disciplinary integration, jointly launching relevant cultural and museum activities with a number of well-known domestic and provincial mass media to expand the audience. Publish relevant activities on various social media platforms simultaneously.
In terms of the cultural industry of Shanxi Museum, our main promotion method is online assisted by offline. We are putting more effort into the research and development of innovative products, and relevant information are mainly released by the online platforms. for example, on Weibo, the public can actively participate in topics relating to creative industries, like filming short videos under the topic of “Bronze Age – Dancing Phoenix” and ” Nice Findings in Shanxi Museum’s creative industry “, thus taking part in the project of “Eastern Beauty and Chinese Fashion Trend”. Through participating in various forms of online activities, combined with traditional on-site events, the stories behind cultural relics are told to the audience in special periods, so that people can accept traditional culture and fall in love with museums.
HR: What are the main challenges of your museum in 2021?
ZZ: At present, the pandemic situation is still not very optimistic. How to do a good job in its prevention and control while opening up services, is the biggest challenge we directly face.
First, how to maintain a steady growth of visitor flow under the premise of implementing regular restriction measures; Secondly, optimizing online public services, the pandemic has promoted the upgrading of social services in museums and accelerated the combination of digital technology and museum culture. However, the lack of digital resources resulted in the simple upload of pictures and words, combined with basic online exhibition layouts, more often, the form is over content. Third, we should carefully examine the impact of COVID-19 on the museum industry. After the pandemic, the public has changed their living habits, cognitive concepts, access to information and other aspects of life. How can we achieve cross-boundary exchanges and cooperation among museums? Finally, it is urgent to strengthen the construction of talents. At present, museum professionals do not have enough knowledge and mastery of digital technology, which requires the training and construction of interdisciplinary talents.
HR: Please introduce to us some of your recent exhibitions and projects.
ZZ: Our recent digital practices (exhibitions/projects) include:
- Exhibition of digital protection achievements of mural and stone cultural relics: This physical exhibition is the first digital exhibition of cultural relics held by Shanxi Museum, which is the digital extension of the exhibition “An Art World on the Wall: Tomb Murals of the Northern Dynasties Excavated in Shanxi”. The two exhibitions happened in tandem, interpreting the “parallel world of mural paintings” with two completely different styles of traditional and modern techniques.
- Seeing into the Truth: Special exhibition on protection and Inheritance of Yongle Palace: On the basis of physical protection, Yongle Palace utilizes digital protection and applications, so that the murals in Yongle Palace can be “viewed with great details and accessed with the truth”. The Yongle Palace has returned to its original nature in the course of protection and inheritance. The online exhibition tries to use a variety of display forms (3D scanning, high-resolution large pictures, speech interpretation, associated papers, extended reading, etc.) realizing the wishes which cannot be realized in the exhibition hall such as seeing undisplayed items, seeing in details, seeing in-depth, seeing whenever, through the online exhibition.
- Exhibition of achievements in digital protection of cultural relics: The digital visual display of a collection of precious cultural relics from Jin Kingdom and North Dynasty, mainly includes 3D digital acquisitions and cultural knowledge. By means of the cultural event calendar, map of space and time, relational force mapping and other forms, to select typical cultural relics, and to present the association knowledge with depth. Setting up thematic exhibitions, making this knowledge more attractive to the public, while improving the efficiency of dissemination.
- Internet + Boundless History Class: This project includes multimedia courses, micro class and the research and development of supporting materials, the main idea is to fusion the quality collections of Shanxi Museum with important modern history and material information, through fine arts creation, two-dimensional animation, science classes, display and experience of teaching aids, and output to the public, especially teenagers, making these education resources understandable and enjoyable to them.
HR: Anything else you want to share?
ZZ: Digital/online display should consider content as top priority, and to be based on digital resources, so we must first pay attention to the construction and accumulation of digital resources, complete the types of resources and broaden the audience. Secondly, the display form should not simply be a multi-angle appearance, but also a deep excavation and three-dimensional interpretation of the inheriting spirit of cultural relics, and the value of art and humanity behind them. From cultural relics exhibition, virtual exhibition, online exhibition, we are gradually moving towards digital humanity.
