What are the good carriers for cultural creation in museums and memorial halls?

In 2016, museum cultural creation, led by the Palace Museum, brought opportunities to the entire museum cultural and creative industry. On May 11, 2016, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Finance The promulgation of "Several Opinions on Promoting the Development of Cultural and Creative Products by Cultural Heritage Units" by the Ministry of Education and the State Administration of Cultural Heritage has given a strong boost to cultural and creative products in museums.

At present, there are thousands of museums, art galleries, and memorial halls in China developing cultural and creative derivatives around their own collections. Among them, the Forbidden City Cultural and Creative Industry is definitely the king of popularity and the leader in the museum cultural and creative industry. who.

1. Forbidden City Cultural Creativity

Speaking of the Forbidden City Cultural Creativity, in 2013 the National Palace Museum in Taipei, China released a popular product - "I Got It" paper tape, such as As shown in Figure 1. The product uses "I know" written by Emperor Kangxi as its cultural element and paper tape as its carrier. Such a simple product has neither special shape nor novel functions. It is loved by netizens just because it is interesting. Perhaps the popularity of this derivative product is not unrelated to the popularity of the Qing Palace Opera. It also proves that "making the product story-telling" is an important factor that distinguishes cultural and creative products from tourist souvenirs. It is also a decision to attract consumer groups other than tourists. factor. The words "I understand" on the tape come from the original handwriting written by Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty when he reviewed the memorial. There is such a story behind this product.

On November 3, the 49th year of Kangxi’s reign, Jiangning Weaving Cao Yin gave Kangxi a memorial of thanks, thanking Kangxi for his concern for his illness. Later, Kangxi wrote in this memorial: "I understand. However, it is not advisable to take medicine for scabies. If the poison enters the body, it may later become leprosy. It cannot be cured by any means outside the sea. Be careful! Be careful! Smilax cocos can be used as a substitute for tea. It is often used as a substitute for tea. It's good to eat it."

The Emperor Kangxi wrote this Zhu Pi not by chance, because he was good at medicine and knew some prescriptions. In addition to making medicines in the palace and rewarding ministers, he also often cared for his ministers through Zhu Pi memorials. Body. Cao Yin compromised his gratitude by mentioning that he mistakenly took ginseng due to the cold and suffered from scabies for more than two months after he was cured. He was ordered to take "Rehmannia Decoction" and so on, and was cured. And now I was ordered to use "smilax" instead of tea.

This long-standing story was reappeared because of a small object. The designer’s original intention was also to “hope that the patterns on ancient cultural relics and calligraphy and paintings can exist in life in a more interesting way.” Interesting is not culture. What is the best medium for delivery?

The Forbidden City's "Cute" series of cultural and creative products are very popular among cultural and creative products in museums across the country. Behind it is five years of exploration and experimentation, as shown in Figure 2 and Figure 3 shown. According to "Business School" magazine, the "Forbidden City Taobao" online store was registered and established as early as 2008. As of September 2014, sales have been tepid. It was not until October of the same year that the launch of Chaozhu headphones led to a sudden increase in online store sales, which also boosted the sales of other cultural and creative products in the store. A series of cultural and creative products with a palace cultural atmosphere, fun, practical and catering to the market, such as "Emperor and Empress" bookmarks and "Business Trip" luggage tags, have been sought after by netizens and have brought considerable sales to cultural and creative stores. The popularity of cultural and creative products from the Forbidden City may be related to the frequent broadcasts of Qing Dynasty operas. In addition, the products are both creative and practical, so their popularity is a matter of course. Although the popularity of Qing Dynasty operas makes consumers first have the outline of the story related to the product, and then like the product, if the cultural and creative product itself cannot be seamlessly integrated with the story and cannot truly express the essence of traditional Chinese culture, it may not be able to Let consumers recognize it.

In 2013, the Forbidden City proposed the "three elements" principle for cultural and creative products developed around the IP of the Forbidden City, namely elementality, storytelling, and inheritance. Elementality means that all cultural and creative products must highlight the elements of the Forbidden City; storytelling means that the product must be able to tell the story behind it; inheritance means that the product is based on spreading excellent traditional Chinese culture and making it relevant to modern people's lives. Connect with each other so that people can feel and accept this culture.

The element represents the culture itself, the story represents the diversity of cultural expressions, and the inheritance represents the purpose for which cultural and creative products are designed.

So, designing interesting culture is not a goal, but a creative means. In this way, effective cultural expression and inheritance can be achieved through the traffic brought by stories.

It is particularly important to note that interesting culture is healthy and positive, which is also the core value of museum cultural and creative products.

Although it is difficult to agree on the consensus, various consumer groups have different demands for culture. For example, some have higher requirements for the accuracy of historical and cultural information, while others only like interesting products. However, in the long run, the latter will deviate from the original intention of cultural and creative product design. As a dissemination space for excellent traditional culture, a very important function of museums is to enhance the public's aesthetic ability and their in-depth understanding of culture.

The popular variety show "The Forbidden City", which was launched in 2018, provides a good analysis of the design process of the Forbidden City's cultural and creative products: the selection of original elements and the verification of the authenticity of the story. , considering the best carrier of cultural inheritance. Popularize the cultural elements and historical stories contained in the product to the audience.

In the first episode of the program, "Forbidden City Cultural Innovation Product Developers" Deng Lun, Zhou Yiwei and guest Cai Shaofen, accompanied by Forbidden City experts and professional designers, launched three single products after a day of excavation The "Meshware" series of cultural and creative products are combined.

The design of the product starts from the story of Emperor Qianlong’s love for opera, and explores the many cultural elements behind the story. First of all, there is the architectural feature of Juanqinzhai. There is a small stage in Juanqinzhai. It is the most luxurious and unique place in the Palace Museum. Through the furniture in Juanqinzhai, the bamboo patterns on the doors and windows, and the double-sided embroidery, etc. The exquisite traditional craftsmanship shows how obsessed Qianlong was with Jiangnan when building Juanqinzhai. Then there is the cultural element of "shijia". The so-called items are fashionable items for aristocratic women in ancient times. In ancient times, women would string together small items and wear them on their bodies. The earliest jade ornaments can be traced back to the jade ornaments unearthed from the tomb of Princess Chen of the Liao Dynasty. There are six ornaments connected in series, namely jade scissors, gongs, files, knives, awls and spoons. Finally, the designer incorporated the Jiangnan elements hidden in Juanqinzhai in the Qianlong Garden - the wisteria birds in the landscape paintings, the bamboo shapes of golden nanmu imitating mottled bamboos, embroidery on both sides with cloud patterns that imply good fortune, and even more It integrates cultural elements such as accessories, and uses makeup products as the carrier to complete the design of the three-piece set of "Meshware".

The cultural and creative product in the second episode of the program is the "Changxin Sleep" series of pajamas that focus on auspicious culture. It is still related to opera. This time the protagonist is changed from Juanqinzhai and Shijie. Sound Pavilion and costumes.

The design of the product started from theater, the main entertainment activity in the palace. During various festivals, such as New Year's Day, Beginning of Spring, Lantern Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Chinese Valentine's Day, Mid-Autumn Festival, Double Ninth Festival, Winter Solstice, New Year's Eve, etc., the emperor's relatives would watch the opera in the palace. Changyin Pavilion is the largest stage in the Forbidden City. It has three levels: upper, middle and lower. The upper level is called "Fu Tai", the middle level is called "Lu Tai", and the lower level is called "Shou Tai". Most of the operas performed here are auspicious fairy plays with singing and dancing. The whole stage has an auspicious atmosphere, including its internal decoration and paintings, and the patterns of cranes, bats and other things on the ceiling.

The designer will The auspicious images such as the crane pattern on the ceiling of Changyin Pavilion and the wood carving animal plaque with curly grass pattern are integrated into the design, transforming the opera costumes from the Qianlong period into modern pajamas, which means "blessed bats, good luck; cranes, congratulations, good news". Wearing such pajamas, you can't help but feel connected with auspiciousness.

The cultural and creative product in the third episode is the sundial clock, which is a design inspired by the story of a "student master". The protagonist of the story is Kangxi. His diligence and studious made his foreign teacher marvel: "I have never seen such a serious, smart and diligent person." His actions such as personally refining Western medicine and boldly studying anatomy showed future generations his respect and love for natural science. This outstanding quality of diligence and studious is the first cultural element. The sundial in Figure 5 originally meant the shadow of the sun, and later became a timekeeping instrument for the ancients. The equatorial sundial in the Hall of Supreme Harmony in the Forbidden City in Beijing is a classic equatorial sundial. The dial surface is made of white marble. As the position of the sun changes, the time it takes for the shadow of the sundial needle to move one inch on the dial is called "one inch of time", which is where the idiom "one inch of time, one inch of gold" comes from. The two cultural elements before and after both have the connotation of cherishing time. The designer combined the sundial with the calendar, effectively colliding and combining the Western clock with the Eastern sundial, and dyed the calendar with the colors of the morning sun, clear sky, and starry night. The creation of the sundial timer "Made at Sunrise" refers to Kangxi's rigorous academic spirit and reminds people to cherish time.

2. Suzhou Museum of Culture and Creativity

Compared with the Forbidden City, which is full of palace atmosphere from its architecture to its cultural and creative products, the Suzhou Museum has two words - literature and art from its architecture to its products. .

Over the past hundred years, the Suzhou culture characterized by "fineness and elegance" created by Suzhou literati in the Ming and Qing dynasties has penetrated into all aspects of Suzhou and attracted many tourists. The Suzhou Museum also focuses on elegance. Next to the Suzhou Museum are four major museums One of the famous gardens, the Humble Administrator's Garden, is part of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's Prince Zhong's Palace. A five-minute walk to the south is the Lion Grove Garden. Pei's design made the Suzhou Museum building one of the design elements of cultural and creative products, pioneering the domestic museum building as a highlight, and spawned a series of cultural and creative products.