What will you do during the Spring Festival? Eating dumplings, setting off fireworks and pasting window paper-cuts are definitely on your long list of things to do. Besides these customs, visiting cultural and art exhibitions can be another choice.
Have a look at the following five exhibitions that may add some artistic and cultural taste to your Spring Festival celebrations.
Dimensions of Family
Family reunion is the most important part of the Spring Festival. To visit an exhibition exploring the connotations of family is probably a wonderful way to spend a day with your family members during the festival.
Beijing Times Art Museum has invited more than 10 artists to showcase their thoughts on family through different artworks in the exhibition titled "Dimensions of Family." The exhibit features paintings, photographs, interactive games and art installations under three themed sections. The "Family of Time" section focuses on how Chinese families have developed from ancient times to today. The "Changes of Families" section explores the changes in clans, houses and the society. The "Warmth of Family" section features furniture and household electric appliances dating back to the 1980s.
Celebrate the New Year of the Rat
This year marks the Year of the Rat according to the Chinese zodiac cycle. An exhibition on relics about rat, the first of the 12 Chinese zodiac animals, has opened in Chongqing to greet the Chinese New Year.
The exhibition displays more than 90 rat-themed cultural items in the Chongqing China Three Gorges Museum. Highlights include rat-shaped jade accessories and clothes of rat fur with decades of history. Over 90 exhibits, including clothes, jade ware, sculptures, Thangka, New Year paintings, bronze mirrors, and non-tradable coins are also displayed to show ancient people's good wishes for the Year of the Rat.
Confucius Culture Exhibition
Confucianism is an indispensable component of the Chinese culture. Educator and philosopher Confucius (551-479 BC) founded the school of thought which remains deeply influential for later generations.
An exhibition featuring Confucian culture at the National Museum of China is a good way to learn about the development of Confucianism. The exhibition displays more than 700 pieces of cultural relics, documents and artworks related to the Confucian culture in four sections to reveal the life and thoughts of Confucius, the development and spread of Confucianism, as well as artworks themed around Confucius.
"Dream of the Red Chamber" Culture Exhibition
An exhibition on "Dream of the Red Chamber" is in full swing at the National Museum of China. Regarded as one of the four great classic novels of Chinese literature, the 18th-century novel depicts the decline of an aristocratic family in Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).
The three-month exhibition is the largest exhibition on the book so far. Nearly 600 related items, including paintings and different editions of the book, are on display. Visitors also have the chance to take a closer look at the manuscripts of the book by Feng Qiyong, a renowned Chinese scholar famous for his contributions to Redology, the study of the Dream of the Red Chamber.
Voluntary Garden
Music is something you shouldn't miss out during the Spring Festival. Focused on music and sound, "Voluntary Garden," a multimedia art project by artist Qin Siyuan, presents a world of music and sound.
A total of 39 musicians were invited to the Fusion Art Center, housed in a traditional Suzhou-style courtyard near the Forbidden City in Beijing from October 17 to 24, 2019. In this space, the musicians performed and were recorded over the course of eight days, taking inspiration from their surroundings for their predominantly improvised performances. "Voluntary Garden" comprises two parts, performance and exhibition, of which the latter will be presented later at UCCA.
