Changzhou Museum is located in the hinterland of Yangzi River Delta, and is a comprehensive museum with a combination of human history, natural history and art. Changzhou Museum is 28,000 square meters in size, containing more than 30,000 cultural relics and specimens. Among these treasures are the jade of the Liangzhu culture period, the proto-celadon of the Spring, Autumn and Warring periods, the lacquer and porcelain of the Song and Yuan dynasties as well as the paintings and calligraphy of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The permanent exhibitions include the Changzhou History and Culture Display, the Natural Resources Display, the Art Museum of Xie Zhiliu’s Displays and the Display of Mahogany Furniture contributed by Mr. Liu Guojun. At the same time, Changzhou Museum holds nearly 20 temporary exhibitions in terms of the different types and materials every year. Recently, the Dunhuang Art Exhibition and Precious Cultural Relics of Empress Dowager Cixi from Summer Palace created a great sensation and made Changzhou Museum one of the most vigorous museums in China. In 2016, Changzhou Museum successfully won The National Most Innovative Museum of China, and was also nominated as the National First-class Museum the next year. All the achievements above thanks to the following vigorous innovative highlights:
Innovation of developmental orientation
Changzhou Museum, founded in 1958, was a historical museum. Over 60 years’ of development, it has become a provincial comprehensive museum. With its novel appearance, fully equipped facilities, advanced functionality, and the characteristics of the ages, the new museum was officially opened to the public in 2007. The Changzhou History and Culture Display reveals the local rich cultural deposits; the Natural Resources Display which sets the enjoyment, knowledge and interactivity together, won the Best Creative Award in the 8th National Top Ten Museum Display in 2009; the Art Museum of Xie Zhiliu’s Displays which shows the artistic career and brilliant achievements of Xie Zhiliu, the famous Changzhou connoisseur and calligrapher and painter; the Display of Mahogany Furniture contributed by Mr. Liu Guojun reappears the civilian residence and life scenes of southern Yangtze River. Changzhou museum innovates to urge development, and continuously improves its public cultural service function, and maximizes its social educational function.
Innovation of exhibition form
As a medium-sized municipal museum, Changzhou Museum promotes world cultural heritages to the public through large exhibitions. It has successively held several high-quality exhibitions about world heritage sites and significant archaeological discoveries, such as The Excellent Treasures from the Winter Palace, The Dunhuang Art Exhibition, The Precious cultural relic of Empress Dowager Cixi from Summer Palace and Precious Relics from Han Tombs at Mawangdui. Meanwhile, it has conducted several activities such as experiential programs, public lectures related with the exhibitions, which had greatly influenced Changzhou and many cities around it, promoted the images and cultural taste of Changzhou city.
Innovation of scientific popularization
The Children’s Natural History Museum is the only one in Jiangsu Province and the first one in China of this type of museum. It carries out the popular science education work creatively and has been honored by the China Association for Science and Technology many times. Although the museum is a municipal medium-sized one, the original natural exhibitions of Changzhou Museum, such as Butterfly specimens and their Cultural Crafts, Bird Specimens and Flower-and-Bird Paintings from Changzhou Museum, Small Shell, but Big World, are exhibited in many cities every year. During the past five years, the exhibitions have travelled to more than 20 museums across the country and been exhibited more than 30 times. All the original natural exhibitions let people know more about the rare and endangered species, the precious natural and geological heritages. Innovation of social education.
Changzhou Museum carried out characteristic and various education activities for juveniles. Introducing the traditional skills of intangible cultural heritage into the important educational activities, we invite the inheritors of the intangible cultural heritage to set up experiential activities, such as Changzhou Comb-making, Hutang Paper-scissor, Jintan paper-cut, Bamboo Carving left bark, and disordered needlework. Among which, the Changzhou combs project attracts general concern and has been promoted in all schools in Changzhou. All these activities let the public appreciate and cherish the excellent skills and cultural heritages of our ancestors, and continue to inherit these local cultural heritages.
We organized a children’s drama production of the Story of the Nueve Deer to cooperate with the Dunhuang Art Exhibition. It was adapted from the Life of King Deer painting in the No. 257 cave of the Mogao Grottoes at Dunhuang.
We use this interesting and easy form to popularize the deep cultural connotations of the Mogao Grottoes at Dunhuang which is the World Cultural Heritage Site, and wish to succeed to the excellent Chinese traditional culture on forever.
We have been holding popular science summer camp every year for different topics from 2009. The topics include butterflies, mineral crystal, fossils, birds, shells and insects etc. The Butterfly Summer Camp was chosen as the demonstration case of Chinese Museum Education Project, and was promoted in the province. We pioneered Tangibly Museum and brought it into schools, especially the schools for migrant workers’ children. This project won the Characteristic Activities for National Science Day in 2015.
Innovation of public relations
Changzhou Museum absorbs social forces from all walks of life to join in the co-construction and development of museum. Cultural Relics Protection and Management of the Provincial Museum Association, the Municipal Museum Association, the Art of Painting and Calligraphy Seminar of Xie Zhiliu and the Changzhou Collector Association are led by us, with lots of experts, private collectors and artist groups. They carry out all kinds of work focusing on academic sharing, cooperative exhibitions, collection donation and museum-school cooperation.
Serving as a 4A-class scenic spot, Changzhou Museum has become an important window for the public and tourists. Changzhou Museum has the superior service to be a modern comprehensive, first-class, prefecture-level museum. We warmly welcome the domestic and overseas guests to visit our museum. We will continue to make contributions to enrich public spiritual and cultural life and carry out international cultural exchanges.