Three Gorges Museum (Chongqing Museum)

Chongqing, China 

Chinese Museums Association / Most Innovative Museums in China Award 2018

 

"Museum+": New Development and New achievements of Museums

 

Traditional museums focus on collection, research, exhibition and interpretation. With the development of society, especially the progress and innovation of science and technology, audiences have put many new requirements on museums. Therefore, museums must achieve new developments in promoting the most effective cultural communication, sustainable protection and utilization of collections, and sound development of the museum industry， so as to respond to social concerns. "Museum+" represents a wing for museums to soar and become better. It is not only a new development mode of museums, but also a new development concept. It is also a reform of museum cultural services.

I.Museum+Internet→Smart Museum

Our "Three Gorges Digital Museum Project" was completed in July 2018. The project includes the construction of 42 subprojects in 5 major sectors, including standard and normative systems, infrastructure facilities, application systems, exhibition and display in the physical museum, and digital resources. The latest cloud computing, big data, AR/VR and other technologies are utilized to build a cloud computing based digital museum platform. The first is to improve the audience's visiting experience. The VR experience of Baiheliang Underwater Museum, the MR experience of old map and old Chongqing, the digital sand table of Three Gorges Dam, interactive magic wall, AR intelligent navigation, etc. present new experience to our audience. The second is to have a better understanding of the audience's demands. The construction of a big data mining analysis system can effectively assess audience's demands through the analysis of the composition structure of visitors to the museum, the flow and long-staying information of visitors, so as to match the museum service supply with visitors' demands and make them satisfied. The third is to improve the effectiveness of museum communication. Through the Internet and other mass media, exhibitions and important activities will be promoted to create "phenomena", publicize events and step up museum marketing. The fourth is to improve service management level. Efforts are made to establish an information system and a big data platform covering all business sections of the museum to realize data inter-connectivity.

 

 

II.Museum+Modern Science→Modern Museum

(1) The Underwater Museum of White Crane Ridge. The project started in 2003, lasted 7 years, and was completed in 2009. It was built on the original site using the principle of "no pressure vessel". High-tech deep water lighting, underwater protection-body diving, water purification and circulation systems and a high-strength and high-definition aviation glass observation window were all applied to the protection of cultural relics for the first time. The research and practice of the underwater protection project on the original site of Baiheliang (the white crane ridge) inscription won the first prize of the "2009 Cultural Relics Protection Science and Technology Innovation Award" from the State Administration of Cultural Heritage. UNESCO called it "the world's first underwater site museum that is not-diving accessible" in 2010 and won the FIDIC 2015 International Engineering Project Award.

(2) Preventive protection of cultural relics. First, a monitoring and evaluation system for the preservation environment of cultural relics has been set up. Pilot renovation has been carried out on the micro-environment of some exhibition cabinets, experimental exhibition halls and standardized warehouses, and a preventive protection system for precious cultural relics in the museum has been established. The second is to focus on the study of new technologies and methods for the prevention and control of harmful organisms in organic cultural relics. A specimen bank of harmful organisms of cultural relics (strain bank, diseases and pest bank) has been preliminarily established, various protective and fumigant agents with environment-protective and cultural-relics friendly features have been developed, and the inhibiting effects of 60 natural plant sources on mycete have been studied. There are 19 authorized patents and some of them have been put into production and use.

 

 

 

III.Museum+Cooperation→Community for Joint Development of Regional Museums

(1) Win-win cooperation among museums of the same type in the municipality. The development model of taking our museum as the general one and other museums as branch ones has driven some museums in Chongqing to develop together. Such cooperative relations have been established with districts, counties and universities to promote joint development of regional museums.

(2) The development practice of cross-regional museum alliance. As the initiator, our museum unites 6 museums in Southwest China and 50 other museums to form the Southwest Museum Alliance with 56 members. Members carry out joint exhibitions, training and other activities. In 2018, "Feast-Witness to the Great Southwest in Records of the Historian" jointly organized by various members of the alliance received the" Excellence Award of Top Ten National Museum Exhibitions", the highest-level award in the exhibition industry in China. The exhibition is itinerant and moving among various alliance members.