Wang Xudong, curator of Palace Museum in Beijing (Photo/People’s Daily)

The year 2020 marks the 600th anniversary of the completion of the Forbidden City and the 95th anniversary of the establishment of the Palace Museum. To celebrate the year, the Palace Museum will host a series of activities, Wang Xudong, curator of the Palace Museum, told People’s Daily in an exclusive interview.

The museum will hold seminars, publish research outcomes, launch exhibitions, organize philanthropic activities, and release TV and film works on the Palace Museum this year, Wang disclosed.

As a highlight of the celebrations, the Palace Museum will invite 600 children from remote and impoverished areas to visit the museum, 600 students from Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan to come to the museum for cultural exchange, and 600 students to take part in a Chinese calligraphy competition at the museum.

“We will continue to explore the infinite potential of the Forbidden City, including its aesthetic value, historic value and scientific value,” Wang said.

By Dec.19, the Palace Museum had received 19 million visitors in 2019. The number was the largest compared with other museums around the world.

Over the past 95 years, staff members have made great efforts to protect the museum and rescued a large number of cultural relics. Now, their focus is on both rescue and preventive protection, and they have included risk monitoring as an important part of protection.

The Palace Museum has proposed building itself into a safe museum, an academic museum, a digital museum, and a vigorous museum, Wang said. In addition, the museum will also enhance cooperation with universities and research institutes and apply 5G technology to the operation of the museum and achieve digitalization.