As the creative products of the Palace Museum have become much more popular, people have realized how great contributions such products can make to promoting the development of a museum and the revival of cultural relics.
As the museology community has agreed on the necessity to develop culturally creative products, innovative power and potential have become important indicators of operational capabilities for museums.
Chongqing abounds with cultural relic resources. In recent years, museums and memorial halls have launched various creative products based on precious relics to make culture and history known to the world.
Tourists listen to stories about the Chongqing China Three Gorges Museum boat trackers. (Photo provided to iChongqing)
"New members" in museums
The creative products of a museum are built upon its most important collections and exhibits and constitute its core competitiveness. At Chongqing China Three Gorges Museum, such examples include the Daxi cultural symbol on baseball caps and the dance scenes of the Han Dynasty (206 BC–220 AD) printed on the cover of notebooks. At Chongqing Industrial Museum, elements such as parts and gears of an 800-horsepower steam engine serve as shining symbols on silk scarves or creative pendants for bracelets, fully demonstrating the characteristics and theme of the industrial museum.
Creative products have been modeled on cultural relics such as narrating and singing figurines and bird-shaped wine vessels. (Photo provided to iChongqing)
The daily articles are thus endowed with cultural profoundness. Among the creative products of Chongqing China Three Gorges Museum, the tea sets, including trays, pots, and cups, have patterns from Qi Baishi's Twelve Landscape Screens and geometric designs of Daxi Culture, which distinguish them culturally from ordinary ones. Perhaps that is an important reason why such creative products are more popular than average souvenirs.
Rongchang pottery cup engraved with unique designs. (Photo provided to iChongqing)
Besides their practical use, some creative products also function as ornaments and collections, even with instructions on connoisseurship. For museums, creative products serve as an important channel for cultural dissemination.
An exquisite DIY three-dimensional painting contains iconic elements of Chongqing. (Photo provided to iChongqing)
Creative stationery products, such as rulers and bookmarks. (Photo provided to iChongqing)
Cultural relics come alive
In the online store of Chongqing China Three Gorges Museum, a tea tray themed with pine and stone is on pre-sale. It is modeled on a namesake guqin (a plucked seven-string Chinese musical instrument). The Three Gorges Museum has a rich collection of guqin. One of them is inscribed by dozens of famous calligraphers and painters in ancient times and is, therefore, one of the museum's top 10 treasures.
Creative products at Chongqing China Three Gorges Museum. (Photo provided to iChongqing)
The tray of the creative product is copied from the guqin completely in shape with the same inscription and the same red stamp. The tray has the strings removed, and a drain added. Therefore, it appears antique with the charm of the guqin.
Creative design is an important step in developing collection-based daily articles that seem natural and amazing. Likewise, a set of porcelain coasters, modeled on the copper mirror with beast patterns in the Eastern Han Dynasty and the gray pottery eaves tile with dragon patterns in the Han Dynasty preserved at the museum, convey intellectual fun and a natural charm.
Exquisite sample tea cups produced by famous kilns in the past dynasties. (Photo provided to iChongqing)
For example, Chongqing China Three Gorges Museum's notebooks with ancient dance scenes on sale look like a spin-off of an animation. In fact, it is inspired by painted bricks in the Eastern Han Dynasty. The banquet dance figures on the bricks have been deconstructed by the designer and endowed with colors and facial expressions. They are playing drums, guqin or sheng, much more vivid than the original ones.
A dialogue across time and space
The Daxi Culture, which dates back about 5,000-6,000 years, is one of the symbols of the Yangtze River civilization. It is named after Daxi Cultural Site in Wushan County, Chongqing, its birthplace identified so far. The key patterns like water ripples on the colored pottery cylinder-shaped bottle, an object type of the Daxi Culture, reveal the love and reverence of ancestors in Daxi for the river.
Chongqing China Three Gorges Museum's streamers are designed with Daxi cultural elements. (Photo provided to iChongqing)
Designers have transferred the key patterns to create products, and by dint of modern techniques of abstraction, rearrangement, and color combination, acquainted modern people with the aesthetical exuberance thousands of years ago. Is it not a dialogue between modern designers and ancient civilizations?
Although we bid farewell to those ancient stone statues, clay tiles, and exquisite paintings and embroidery in the exhibition hall, we remain awed looking at the patterns on the card pack or mobile phone lanyard. These beauties of culture will always remind us of the awe felt at museums and accompany us for a long time.
Shop assistants are making incense attentively. (Photo provided to iChongqing)
The designs of Daxi Culture on a mobile phone lanyard may relate us to the ancients fetching water and fishing in Daxi as we stroll on the riverbank. The dance scenes on a notebook may present us with the life in the Han Dynasty as we scribble on it, and the splendid Bayu culture goes beyond museums and bonds with us in a vivid, silent yet forceful way.