The Flavor of Hunan Kicked Off in the Hunan Museum
On January 12, the special exhibition "the Flavor of Hunan" kicked off at the Hunan Museum. Leaders from the Hunan Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism, the Hunan Provincial Bureau of Cultural Relics, the Hunan Museum and other relevant personnel attended the opening ceremony, as well as representatives of artisans, sponsoring companies and media. The Spring Festival is the most important festival in China, which expresses the hope of following year, the reunion of a family and the inheritance of one generation. "What are the characteristics of the Hunan New Year's Eve dinner?" "What are the differences in the customs of 14 cities?" "How is the banquet etiquette in the Western Han Dynasty different from the present?" On the occasion of the New Year, the Hunan Museum, in combination with its own collection of cultural relics, focused on customs, sceneries and local specialties of Hunan, and created a scene based and experiential New Year’s special exhibition called "the Flavor of Hunan", from the taste of the year to the customs and then to the goods, it promoted commercial development with culture.
Opening Ceremony
As one of the first national first-class and one of the eight key national museums jointly built by central and local governments, the Hunan Museum is the essential window to understand the process of Hunan civilization and appreciate the mysteries of Hunan culture. This special exhibition takes the "14th Five-Year Cultural and Tourism Development Plan" as the outline, takes the culture of Hunan as the foundation, takes Hunan customs, tastes and products as the carrier, and combines the rich cultural relics resources and cultural research in the collection of Hunan Museum to make "cultural relics live and popular" through the scene experience of ancient and modern juxtaposition and space-time comparison.
Exhibition Entrance
The image ambassador of this exhibition is a leopard cat, which is a design of lacquer plate from the Mawangdui Han Dynasty Tombs. At the main entrance of the exhibition, visitors can see the god in the image of the leopard cat, on the gate with ancient Chinese architectural elements to protect households, riding an auspicious rabbit and an adorable tiger to embrace the new year. Entering from this, through the corridor of the evolution of Chinese customs spanning more than two thousand years, the 14 cities’ customs painted in the style of Tantou New Year painting is slowly unfolding in front of the audiences, other than that, there are the experience area of banquet in Western Han Dynasty, the installation of " Dinner of New Year’s Eve" hanging in the air and exceptional brand display of Hunan and New Year’s shopping area, where audiences can see the achievements of famous companies in Hunan such as Changsha Bank Co., Ltd., Hunan Agricultural Development Investment Group Co., Ltd., Hunan Tea Industry Group, Xuetian Salt Industry Group Co., Ltd., Zhonglian Smart Agriculture Co., Ltd., Hunan Xiangjiao Liquor Industry Co., Ltd., and Hunan Guoxiu Food Products Co., Ltd. Moving from a major agricultural province to a strong agricultural province cannot be achieved without the full commitment of these local enterprises, and it is precisely that these enterprises and brands make Hunan people's New Year more enjoyable.
Audiences in the Exhibition
"The Flavor of Hunan" strives to create a new year’s eve dinner that visitors can see, walk around and take something away, fully displaying the unique spring festival customs, local good things and intangible cultural heritage skills of 14 cities, providing a stage for the appearance of local excellent brands, so that the visitors can take away the Hunan New Year gift composed of Sexy Tea, LaMeiZi, HeyHeyBlack and so on, and stimulate public recognition of the local culture.
For Chinese people, the Chinese New Year has the intensest festive atmosphere, because Spring Festival means the taste of local scenery transformed by people and time and a sense of ritual passed down from generation to generation to pray for a happy new year. Leaving Hunan, the Spring Festival of Hunan people will lose its distinctive features due to the loss of cultural foundation. "The Flavor of Hunan" is about the inheritance of customs and regional culture. With the help of this exhibition, visitors can connect the history, knowledge, and people behind cultural relics, strike a chord with regional culture, inform everyone the customs, get closer to Hunan, and have a better understanding and experience of Chinese culture, become the culture inheritor.
The exhibition is open to the public for free from 12 January 2023 to 31 March 2023 in the Art Hall on the first floor of the Hunan Museum, and visitors can book tickets on the Hunan Museum's official website, official WeChat account and Alipay.
