What are the good carriers for museum and memorial cultural creation

In 2016, the cultural creation of museums led by the Forbidden City Cultural Creation brought opportunities to the entire museum cultural creation industry, and with the introduction of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Finance, and the State Administration of Cultural Heritage's "Opinions on Promoting the Development of Cultural Creation Products in Cultural Relics Units," on May 11, 2016, it is a powerful boost to the museum cultural creation.

At present, there are thousands of museums, art galleries, and memorial halls in China that have developed cultural and creative derivatives around their own collection of products, among which the Forbidden City's cultural and creative is definitely the king of popularity and the leader of the museum's cultural and creative industry.

1. National Palace Creations

When it comes to National Palace creations, in 2013, the National Palace Museum in Taipei, China, had a hit product - "I know" paper tape, as shown in Figure 1. Products to the Kangxi Zhu batch "I know" as a cultural element, to paper tape as a carrier. Such a simple product, neither special shape, nor novel function, only because it is interesting and loved by netizens. Perhaps the popularity of this derivative product is not unrelated to the popularity of the Qing Palace drama, but also proves that "let the product has a story" is a cultural and creative products are different from the tourist souvenirs of an important factor, but also to attract tourists other than the consumer groups of the determining factors. The words on the paper tape "I know" come from the handwriting of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty when he was reviewing the zhangfu. There is a story behind this product.

Kangxi forty-nine years of November 3, Jiangning weaver Cao Yin to Kang Xi on a thank-you zhang zhuan, thank Kang Xi on their own condition of concern. After the Kangxi in this zhangzuo wrote: "know. But scabies should not take medicine, if the poison into the inner, and later feared to become leprosy. Outside the sea, a thousand ways can not cure. Be careful! Be careful! Poria can be used as a substitute for tea, often eat to also good."

The Kangxi Emperor this Zhu batch of writing is not accidental, because he is good medicine and know some prescription, in addition to the pharmaceutical reward in the palace ministers and workers, but also often through the Zhu batch of zhangzhu care of ministers body. Cao Yin this thank you folding, mentioned himself because of the wind cold mistakenly served ginseng, after the solution and scabies lying sick for more than two months, before the order to take the grace of "dihuangtang", etc., to be cured. And now again ordered by the grace of "Tu Fu Ling" instead of tea service.

The long-ago story, because a small item to be reproduced, the designer's original intention is also "hope that ancient relics, paintings and calligraphy on the pattern can be more interesting way to exist in life", interesting is not exactly the best medium for cultural transfer it.

The popularity of the Forbidden City's "Meng Meng Da" series of cultural and creative products is very high in the national museums, and behind it is five years of exploration and experimentation, as shown in Figure 2 and Figure 3. According to "Business School" magazine reported, "Palace Taobao" online store was registered as early as 2008, until September 2014, sales have been lukewarm. Until October of the same year, the launch of the Chaozhu headphones to make the online store sales increased steeply, but also led to the store's other cultural and creative products sales. "Empress" bookmarks, "on business" luggage tags and a series of cultural atmosphere of the Palace, fun, practical, catering to the market of cultural and creative products by netizens, to cultural and creative store has brought considerable sales. The popularity of the Forbidden City cultural and creative products may be related to the frequent broadcast of the Qing dynasty drama, coupled with the creativity and practicality of the products are still good, popularity has become a matter of course. Although the popularity of the Qing dynasty dramas has given consumers a storyline related to the products, which they have come to love, the products may not be recognized by consumers if they do not blend seamlessly with the story and truly express the essence of traditional Chinese culture.

In 2013, the Forbidden City put forward the principle of "three elements" for cultural and creative products developed around the Forbidden City's IP, i.e., elemental, storytelling and inheritance. Elemental means that all cultural and creative products must emphasize the elements of the Palace; storytelling means that the products should be able to tell the stories behind them; and inheritance means that the products should take the dissemination of excellent traditional Chinese culture as the starting point, so that they can dovetail with the lives of modern people, and thus allow people to feel and accept this culture.

Elementality represents the culture itself, storytelling represents the diversity of cultural expressions, and inheritance represents the purpose for which cultural and creative products are designed.

So, designing interesting culture is not an end, but a creative means, through which effective cultural expression and inheritance can be realized by the flow brought by stories.

It is especially important to note that the fun culture is healthy and positive, which is also the core value of the museum's creative products. Although there are many mouths to feed, and all kinds of consumer groups have different degrees of demand for culture, such as those who have high requirements for the accuracy of historical and cultural information, and those who only like interesting products, in the long run, the latter will deviate from the original intention of the design of cultural and creative products. As a space for the dissemination of excellent traditional culture, a very important function of the museum lies in enhancing the public's aesthetic power and its deep knowledge of culture.

The design process of the Forbidden City's cultural and creative products is well analyzed in the popular variety show "The New Forbidden City", which started broadcasting in 2018: there is the selection of original elements, the verification of the authenticity of the story, and the deliberation of the best carrier for cultural heritage. It popularized the cultural elements and historical stories embedded in the products for the audience.

In the first installment of the program, "the Forbidden City cultural and creative products developer" Deng Lun, Zhou Yiwei and the guest Cai Shaofen, accompanied by the Palace experts and professional designers, after a day of discovery, launched a series of cultural and creative products by the combination of three single products, "Mei Shi Piece".

The design of the products started with the story of Emperor Qianlong's love of opera, and explored the many cultural elements behind the story. The first is the architectural features of the Weakinzhai, there is a small theater in the Weakinzhai, it is the most luxurious and peculiar place in the Palace Museum, through the Weakinzhai furniture and doors and windows of the bamboo pattern and double-sided embroidery and other exquisite traditional crafts, you can feel when building the Weakinzhai, Qianlong how obsessed with the south of the Yangtze River. Then there is the cultural element of "shiqi". The so-called "shiqi" was a fashionable object for noble women in ancient times, who would string small objects together and wear them on their bodies. The earliest trace of the shiqi can be traced back to the jade pendants unearthed from the tomb of Princess Chen of the Liao Dynasty, which consisted of six pieces of jewelry strung together, namely a jade cutter, a knife, a file, a knife, an awl, and a spoon. Finally, the designer will be hidden in the Qianlong garden burnout Zhai Jiangnan elements - through the landscape painting of wisteria birds, gold nanmu imitation bamboo bamboo shape, double-sided embroidery on the cloud symbolizing good luck, as well as the shiqi and other cultural elements are fused to complete the "beauty shiqi" three-piece set design, using the makeup products as a carrier. "The design of the three-piece set was completed by using color cosmetics products as the carrier.

The second installment of the program is a series of pajamas called "Smooth Sleep" that focuses on auspicious culture and is still related to opera, but this time the protagonist has been changed from Burnout and Shizi to Smooth Sound Pavilion and opera costumes.

The design of the product started with the main entertainment activity in the palace, watching the opera. Every various festivals, such as New Year's Day, Spring Festival, Shangyuan, Dragon Boat Festival, Tanabata, Mid-Autumn Festival, Chungyang, Winter Solstice, New Year's Eve, etc., the royal relatives have to watch the opera in the palace. Smooth Sound Pavilion is the largest theater in the Forbidden City, there are upper, middle and lower three tiers of the stage, the upper level called "Fukudaibai", the middle level called "Lukudaibai", the lower level called "Shouduibai". Most of the operas performed here are auspicious fairy plays with songs and dances, and the whole stage is full of auspicious atmosphere, including its interior decoration and painting, cranes, bats and other patterns on the ceiling.

The designer incorporated the crane pattern on the ceiling of the Smooth Sound Pavilion as well as the wooden plaque of carved animals with curly grass motifs and other auspicious imagery into the design, and transformed the Qianlong-era costumes into modern pajamas to mean "Bat Fortune, Fortune as you wish; Crane Greetings, Greetings of Good Tidings". Wearing such pajamas on one's body, one can't help but feel associated with good fortune inside.

The third installment of the program features a sundial clock, which was designed by a story about a "scholar". The protagonist of the story is Kang Xi, whose diligence in learning made his foreign teacher marvel: "I have never seen such a serious, intelligent and diligent person". His behavior of refining western medicine and boldly researching anatomy showed the future generations his respect and love for natural science, and this excellent virtue of diligence and learning is the first cultural element. The sundial in Figure 5, whose original meaning is the shadow of the sun, later became a timekeeping instrument for the ancients. The equatorial sundial in the Hall of Supreme Harmony of the Forbidden City in Beijing, the sundial surface made of white jade, is the classic equatorial sundial. With the change of the sun's position, the sundial needle shadow on the plate to move an inch of the time spent is called "an inch of time", "an inch of time, an inch of gold" idiom is derived. Before and after the two cultural elements have the connotation of cherishing time, the designer combines the sundial and the calendar, the Western clock and the Oriental sundial for effective collision and combination, with the sunrise, the clear sky, the stars and the colors of the night dyed as a calendar. The creation of the sundial timepiece "Sunrise" refers to Kangxi's rigorous spirit of learning, and also reminds people to cherish time.

2. Suzhou Museum of Creative

Contrasting with the Forbidden City from the building to the creative products are full of palace atmosphere, Suzhou Museum from the building to the product is two words - literary. Over the past hundred years, the Ming and Qing dynasties of Suzhou literati created by the "fine and elegant" as the characteristics of Suzhou culture permeate every aspect of Suzhou, but also attracted many tourists, Suzhou Museum is also to elegant style, Suzhou Museum is next to one of the four famous garden of the Humble Administrator, part of the museum is still the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of the loyal king's mansion, a five-minute walk south of the Lion's Grove. A five-minute walk south is the Lion Grove. I.M. Pei's design makes the Suzhou Museum building one of the design elements of the cultural and creative products, creating a precedent in China for the museum building to become a highlight and giving rise to a series of cultural and creative products.