About the HNM
About the HNM
Hunan Museum is the largest museum of history and art in Hunan Province, with a total floor area of 112,469 square meters. It is one of the first batch of national first - class museums, one of the eight national - level key museums jointly built by the central and local governments, an advanced collective in the national cultural system, an advanced collective in the national cultural relics system, a national patriotism education demonstration base, and an advanced collective making outstanding contributions to the construction of a strong cultural province.
Since its establishment, Hunan Museum has taken it as its responsibility to protect and inherit outstanding historical culture, integrating functions such as cultural relic collection, preservation, research, exhibition, education, and service. For several decades, the museum as a cultural landmark in Changsha city, has attracted millions of visitors. It not only presents the Chinese civilization along the middle reaches of the Yangtze River but also serves as a unique window for people to understand the development of the civilization in Hunan province as well as to appreciate the mysteries of Hunan culture.
With a history over half a century, the Hunan Museum has made remarkable achievements in exhibitions, social education, public services, development and innovation of cultural and creative products, operations and management. It has become one of the most influential museums in China and one of the most advanced museums in the international arena.
Collections and Exhibitions
Hunan Museum currently houses over 540,000 items (sets) of cultural relics in its collection. The cultural relics unearthed from the Mawangdui Han Tombs, bronze wares from the Shang and Zhou dynasties, Chu - state cultural relics, pottery and porcelain works from various dynasties, paintings, calligraphy works, and modern and contemporary cultural relics are particularly distinctive. In order to fully showcase these precious cultural relics in this art palace, the staff of Hunan Museum have scientifically and deeply explored the connotations of the cultural relics. By leveraging modern exhibition art, they have meticulously created two basic exhibitions, namely "The Mawangdui Han Dynasty Tombs in Changsha" and "Hunanese-Exhibition of Hunan History and Culture", as well as four themed exhibition halls to display the outstanding cultural treasures of humanity.In addition, Hunan Museum has been continuously introducing and launching a rich variety of temporary exhibitions with diverse forms, comprehensively presenting and disseminating Hunan culture to the public at home and abroad, and introducing world civilizations and excellent cultures. Since 2017, Hunan Museum has held or participated in over 100 exhibitions of various kinds, playing an important role in promoting outstanding traditional Chinese culture, revolutionary culture, and advanced socialist culture, and in building a Chinese national community. Among them, in 2019, the "Hunanese-Exhibition of Hunan History and Culture" and the "The Mawangdui Han Dynasty Tombs in Changsha" were rated first in the recommendation of the top ten excellent museum exhibitions of the 16th session (for the year 2018). In 2021, the exhibition "Exhibition of Chinese Ancient Bronzewares" was selected as one of the top ten excellent museum exhibitions of the 20th session (for the year 2022).
Service and Education
As a non - profit cultural institution, Hunan Museum adheres to the philosophy of "people - oriented and serving society". By introducing the ISO9001 quality management system and ISO14001 environmental management system, it has significantly enhanced its service level. Particularly since the adoption of free admission policy on March 20, 2008, Hunan Museum has extended high - quality services to every visitor. It has conducted new explorations and practices in this great project of free admission, and has been commended by the Ministry of Culture and the National Cultural Heritage Administration as a museum leading the way in the national cultural system. On November 29, 2017, the new building of Hunan Museum was officially opened to the public. The total number of visitors it receives has remained high, leading the country. To date, it has received over 19 million domestic and foreign visitors. It also persists in providing the public with a visiting experience that is "warm, impactful, and efficient", becoming a "cultural calling card" for Hunan to the world and a well - deserved "cultural landmark of Hunan". In addition, to improve visitors' appreciation ability and interest in visiting, Hunan Museum adheres to the educational philosophy of "establishing a multi - cultural cognitive system and creating a lifelong education service system". It provides educational services at different levels, in different forms, and of different categories for different audiences. For example, it offers thematic guided tours, lectures, membership programs, family theme days, teacher salons, etc. By doing so, it has established a relatively complete museum education service system, playing a remarkable role in scientific knowledge education, patriotism education, and revolutionary tradition education.
Preservation of Cultural Relics and Scientific Research
Hunan Museum holds Class-A design qualification for the technical protection of movable cultural relics and Class-I restoration qualification for movable cultural relics. Based on its collection, Hunan Museum actively conducts technical research and practice on the protection and utilization of cultural relics, and has achieved certain results in aspects such as the rust removal, reinforcement, and restoration of metal cultural relics, the protection and restoration of ceramic cultural relics, and the restoration of paper cultural relics. It also possesses nationally leading technologies in aspects such as the dehydration research of lacquerware and wooden objects, the protection and cleaning of textiles, and the protection of Mawangdui-type humid corpses. Meanwhile, Hunan Museum has a profound academic tradition and a favorable academic atmosphere in fields such as museology research, cultural relic research and appreciation, cultural relic protection and restoration, and education promotion. The scientific research and academic work of the whole museum show a good momentum of all-round development in multiple disciplines. Since 2017, the museum has successively undertaken and completed a number of national and provincial-level research projects, and obtained a number of software copyrights and patents. At the same time, it actively explores the collaborative innovation mechanism among museums, universities, scientific research institutions, and market entities to promote the output, transfer, and transformation of museum scientific and technological achievements. Among them, the Hunan Research and Protection Center for Mawangdui Ancient Corpses and Cultural Relics jointly established with Central South University has nationally leading technologies in aspects such as the protection of Mawangdui-type humid corpses, and has created a successful example of cultural relic research and protection. In 2020, Hunan Museum successfully applied to become a "scientific research institution", becoming one of the few cases among provincial-level museums in China. In 2021, it was approved to establish the "Hunan Key Laboratory of Scientific Archaeology and the Protection and Utilization of Cultural Relics", and applied to become one of the "First Batch of Hunan Provincial Demonstration Bases for the Integration of Culture and Technology".
Exchanges and Cooperation
Under the guidance of the principle of "going global and bringing in", Hunan Museum has carried out foreign cultural exchange activities with more than 30 countries and regions around the world. The staff of Hunan Museum have left their footprints on almost every continent. Delegations such as the United Nations visiting group to Hunan, the President of Sierra Leone, the Public Intellectuals Program Delegation of the National Committee on United States-China Relations in the United States, the Prime Minister of Vanuatu, the Prime Minister of Singapore, the Ambassador of Greece to China, the Ambassador of the United States to China, and the Ambassador of Italy to China have visited the museum successively. For many consecutive years, professional staff from Hunan Museum have been dispatched to countries and regions such as Brazil, Italy, Serbia, Austria, Israel, and Japan to participate in various annual conferences and academic seminars organized by the International Council of Museums (ICOM). Hunan Museum has also been invited to attend the annual conference of the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) and deliver keynote speeches on multiple occasions. In terms of exhibition exchanges, Hunan Museum has successively promoted a number of cultural relic exhibitions to countries and regions including the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, Mexico, the Netherlands, Yugoslavia, South Korea, Japan, Tunisia, Singapore, and Germany. It has also jointly participated in the France Museum Exhibition with other domestic institutions and set up a Chinese exhibition area. Moreover, 14 overseas experts from the United States, Canada, France, the United Kingdom, etc. have been hired as specially invited overseas academic consultants and curators of Hunan Museum, and multiple transnational cooperation exhibitions have been promoted to fruition. A series of important cooperation intentions have been reached with international counterparts in aspects such as talent cultivation, scientific research breakthroughs, collection protection, museum management and planning, and continuous cooperation achievements have been made.
Cultural and Creative Industries
Hunan Museum has always been deeply drawing on the R & D concepts of the "creative industry", thoroughly exploring the characteristics and connotations of its collection resources, and transforming them into special forms and carriers of museum cultural and creative products. The museum is among the first batch of pilot units for the development of cultural and creative products in cultural and cultural relics units across the country. A number of cultural and creative products have won the title of "Top 100 Creative Products in China". In cooperation with Changsha Bank and SexyTea, Hunan Museum has launched the "Tea - Enthusiast Card" and held subway pop-up exhibitions. It has also collaborated with the Hunan Peking Opera Protection and Inheritance Center to launch the "A Dreamland of Xinzhui: The Dynamic Restoration Exhibition of Mawangdui". By integrating culture with different fields, it promotes the in-depth integration of culture and tourism and the development of the urban economy. The museum has launched a integration project with Hunan Martyrs' Park, striving to achieve the in-depth integration of resources, venues, and content. It aims to create a new demonstration landmark for the integration of culture and tourism in Hunan and a new model for the integrated development of culture and tourism nationwide. The two parties will jointly strive to create a national 5A-level scenic spot.
Media Communication
At present, Hunan Museum has gradually formed a museum communication system that combines traditional media with new media and integrates online and offline channels. It introduces cultural relics to the audience and tells historical and cultural stories in ways that the public loves, making the cultural relics "come alive" and "become popular". Hunan Museum has successively opened official accounts on new media platforms such as Weibo, WeChat, Douyin, Ximalaya, and Bilibili. Among them, the official WeChat account of Hunan Museum has over 6.917 million followers, and the official Weibo account has more than 575,000 followers, leading the country in the number of followers. Since 2019, the official Weibo and Douyin accounts of Hunan Museum have been repeatedly rated as "Top Ten Most Innovative Official Weibo Accounts in the Field of Cultural Heritage and Museums of the Year" and "Outstanding Creators of Government Douyin Accounts". Hunan Museum has also ensured that the topic volume on new media platforms ranks among the top in the country through a series of large-scale activities and exhibitions, such as the new premise of Hunan Museum was officially opened, hosting the main venue of International Museum Day, and the 50th Anniversary International Academic Symposium on the Archaeological Excavation of the Mawangdui Han Tombs.
Mission
Hunan Museum is a large - scale historical and art museum mainly reflecting the civilization of the Hunan region. Rooted in the protection of cultural heritage, it is committed to the dissemination of excellent culture, aiming to stimulate public participation and love. It spares no effort to create "Our Museum" that is co-owned, co-built, and shared.
Organizational Structure
The internal institutions of Hunan Museum include: General Affairs Office,Research and Exhibition Center for Ancient Artifacts; Research and Exhibition Center for Mawangdui Han Tombs and Their Collections; Research and Exhibition Center for Calligraphy, Painting and Documentary Materials; Research and Exhibition Center for Modern and Contemporary Collections; Cultural Relics Collection and Appraisal Center; Collection Registration Department; Collection Conservation Center; Education Center; Data Center; Scientific Research Management Department; Book Editorial Department; International Exchange Department; Art Design Department; Open - to - Public Management Department; Cultural and Creative Research Center; Party Building and Supervision Department; Human Resources Department; Finance Department; Logistics Management Department; Security Management Department; Engineering Construction Management Department; Management and Service Department for Retirees
Subordinate Enterprises of the Museum: Hunan Cultural Heritage, Cultural and Creative Property Industry Research and Development Co., Ltd.
