What will it bring to the Shanghai metropolitan area?, Nine Museums Alliance in Jiangnan | Talents | Nine Museums

We are both located in the cultural circle of Jiangnan and share common characteristics. Through communication, we have found that many collections have common elements, such as Shanghai style calligraphy and painting, intangible cultural heritage, ancient towns... The "1+8" Urban Museum Alliance Cooperation and Exchange Activity in the Shanghai Metropolitan Area "was jointly launched by the Shanghai History Museum, Wuxi Museum, Changzhou Museum, Suzhou Museum, Nantong Museum, Ningbo Museum, Huzhou Museum, Jiaxing Museum, and Zhoushan Museum on June 28th and 29th at the Shanghai History Museum. This is the first offline activity since the establishment of the alliance. Each member unit has conducted in-depth discussions on talent cultivation, exhibition cooperation, joint research on "Jiangnan Culture", information exchange for cultural relics collection, and technology docking for cultural relics protection among the alliance. As the first joint exhibition project to be launched, the "Shanghai Metropolitan Area Modern Patriotic Entrepreneurs Exhibition" is planned to be launched in the second half of next year, with a tour in nine cities.

At the cooperation and exchange event, the logo of the "1+8" City Museum Alliance in the Shanghai metropolitan area was unveiled. The alliance logo "∞" is a symbol representing infinity, representing an infinite possibility. The infinity symbol is placed horizontally, symbolizing 8 characters. The red color represents the Chinese number "one", which means "1+8". The purpose of this exchange activity is to promote information exchange and complementary advantages between libraries, achieve the integration and utilization of cultural and museum resources within the alliance, and use new cross-border thinking to help Shanghai metropolitan area become a world-class cultural urban cluster with global influence; At the same time, we will jointly build a "big stage" of multi-directional and virtuous circulation of cultural and tourism for all collaborative member units, facing Shanghai and the international community. According to statistics, in 2022, Jiuguan received over 6.06 million visitors and held 207 exhibitions of various types.

Sun Mingli, Deputy Director of Suzhou Museum, believes that the alliance units are geographically close and culturally connected, and can interpret Jiangnan culture and Shanghai style calligraphy and painting as the same theme through different exhibitions. "The distance between the 9 museums is mostly between two to three hours' drive. We can hold touring exhibitions or create digital exhibitions to be launched online." Zhang Liang, the director of the Ningbo Museum, suggested that museums can have more social forces involved. "Traditional volunteers are limited to explanatory services. With the development of Chinese museums, there are more and more professionals in society. While ensuring standardized processes and cultural relic safety, more social experts and ordinary people with professional knowledge or special fields can participate, supporting us to better complete the museum's value expression work."

The "1+8" Urban Museum Alliance in the Shanghai metropolitan area is also establishing an exclusive professional mentor team to provide guidance and practical exchange platforms for the growth of young talents in member units, achieving efficient flow of expert resources and complementary advantages; Carry out a talent joint training system to cultivate a future versatile talent pool in museums; Carry out joint research and curation activities around "Jiangnan culture" and "Shanghai style culture", and plan exhibition exhibitions that fully showcase the close connections between the nine cities; Nine museums collaborate to jointly carry out a series of foreign cooperation around the stories of Jiangnan and China, helping Chinese culture to go global and speak well. "I hope to shape a group of high-quality integrated products with fireworks, Shanghai style scenery, Jiangnan charm, Chinese spirit, and international style in the process of international promotion, and to find a new path in the museum circle." said Zhou Qunhua, Director of the Shanghai History Museum.

In the future, according to the Charter of the "1+8" City Museum Collaborative Development Cooperation Alliance in the Shanghai Metropolitan Area, each museum of the alliance will host relevant core business activities annually, effectively promoting the implementation of cooperation projects one by one, consolidating and improving the multi-level coordination mechanism of the alliance's "point line surface", injecting cultural innovation power and career development vitality into the Shanghai metropolitan area with a collaborative and sharing thinking, consolidating the cultural foundation of the metropolitan area, promoting the deep and high-quality integration of cultural tourism and business multiple formats through cross-border innovation, and establishing a high-quality model of regional cultural and museum cooperation alliance brands.