Chinese museums overcome geographical boundaries after holding online exhibitions

An ongoing exhibition featuring about 1,000 ancient female-themed artifacts and paintings from 32 museums across China is underway both offline and online at the Zhejiang Provincial Museum in Hangzhou city, east China’s Zhejiang Province.

Photo shows the exhibition of female-themed artifacts and paintings held at the Zhejiang Provincial Museum. (Photo/Zhejiang Provincial Museum)

During the exhibition, an animated version of a painting from the Zhejiang Provincial Museum, which depicts a scene in which female intellectuals attend a gathering of scholars and artists during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), vividly provided the viewing public with detailed insight into the premodern lives of women in China’s traditional high society.

Currently, museums in China are thriving across the country, while the ways in which they display their exhibits and how they make use of their respective collections of cultural relics are constantly being innovated. Meanwhile, many museums have applied digital technologies in order to host exhibitions and have rolled out creative online exhibitions in a bid to reach more audiences.

On the same day when the Zhejiang Provincial Museum kicked off its exhibition, four other museums, including one in Anhui Province, one in Jiangxi Province, one in Jiangsu Province, and one in Zhejiang Province, also unveiled their own respective female-themed exhibitions. Through cooperative efforts among the five museums and thanks to the application of digital technologies, the five museums have provided the general public with a chance to explore the different exhibitions housed at each other’s exhibition halls conveniently through the use of multimedia screens.

Last year, the Zhejiang Provincial Museum held the first-ever online exhibition featuring over 1,000 female-themed paintings after partnering with more than 30 museums and art galleries across the country.

The museum has also established a special database collecting pictures of women from ancient times. The database can be used to search out specific information and conduct research on cultural relics, as well as for planning new exhibitions and efforts aimed at the popularization of museums. It also can assist in the development of cultural and creative products, as well as for promoting the sharing of data and collaboration between museums and across various disciplines.