The Second Chinese Museum Studies Conference opened Friday in Suzhou, a city in east China's Jiangsu Province.
Building on the success of the first conference in Guangzhou in 2023, this year's event turns its focus to the sustainable development of museums, exploring how museums can remain both guardians of the past and pioneers of the future.
At the opening ceremony at Suzhou's Shishan International Conference Center, several major achievements were unveiled, including the launch of the Chinese edition of the Dictionary of Museology and the Guidelines on Museum Accessibility in China.
Speakers highlighted China's growing role in advancing global collaboration in the field of museum.
"China is one of the world's oldest civilizations and its contemporary art and culture is very vibrant. So China has everything to offer to the world. And also it is very exciting to see the rapid and effective development for museum field in China. So many new museums, so many new professionals, the cutting-edge technology, very thoughtful service to the public, for example, how to serve the people with special needs, and so on, so forth. So I think there's tremendous potential of collaboration between Chinese museums and museums in the world," said Jay Xu, director emeritus of Asian Art Museum of San Francisco.
At the conference, American scholar Patricia Rodewald, a distinguished professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, shared her appreciation for a recent exhibition she visited in Suzhou.
"I have seen many exhibitions in China. Just yesterday, I saw an exhibition here at the Suzhou West Museum and it was a collaboration between Western museums and Chinese museums looking at gardens from the Humble Administrator's Garden in Suzhou to Monet's gardens in Giverny. I loved that kind of cross-cultural exploration and examination of objects and history," said Rodewald, also the former director of the Department of Education at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta.
The two-day conference brought together hundreds of scholars, curators, and cultural experts to explore the sustainable future of museums. As institutions around the world strive to balance innovation with preservation, experts participating in the Suzhou conference have called for greater collaboration across museums.
Together, they are reimagining how Chinese museums can build a more resilient and connected cultural future.
Suzhou hosts conference spotlighting sustainable future for museums
