The Hunan Museum Launched New Animation Serials

The Hunan Museum, together with the Hunan Provincial branch of the Xinhua News Agency, launch a 9-episode animated video, Travel with the Cultural Treasures, to global audience on June 12, 2021, the Cultural and Natural Heritage Day. This series of animation is co-produced by the Hunan Museum and the Department of Digital & Media of the Fine Arts Academy of Hunan Normal University. Inspired by livestreaming, the most fashionable way of recreation and learning these days, the production team personifies cultural treasures as time travelers, making them the “online streamers” who lead the audience back to certain historical periods and know more about the historical settings while introducing related histories and cultures with popular, lively, and interesting lines.

The 9 (sets of) cartoon characters are based on cultural treasures collected by the Hunan Museum and personified in accordance with the prototypes’ shapes, patterns, decorations, functions, and techniques. In this way, the “freeze-framed” cultural treasures previously on display in the museum are transformed into vivid and amiable cartoon images with distinct personalities and cultural connotations, revealing to us the historical background behind certain cultural treasures in their own words. Travel with the Cultural Treasures aims at imparting knowledge at the very beginning of planning. In the hope that the contents are delivered in a rather intelligible and popular manner, each and every episode focuses on specific historical background, cultural tradition, or conventional technique, including the separate dining etiquette in Western Han Dynasty(202B.C.–8A.D.), women’s ancient Chinese soccer craze in Song Dynasty(960–1279), the history of carriers for Chinese characters, and the process for making Tantou New Year pictures. Different parts of the animated cultural treasures, or time travelers, such as costumes, appearances, settings, and props are designed on the basis of the prototypes or historical facts as we work to keep this animation entertaining while staying true to the history to the greatest extent possible.

Starting on June 12th, the 9-episode Travel with the Cultural Treasures with an average length of 1.5 minutes for each episode will be aired three times per week. Stay tuned for updates by following Hunan Museum’s official account in WeChat, Sina Weibo and Tik Tok, or visit Xinhua News Agency’s app and its overseas social accounts. To make the animation more inclusive, we will launch special events both online and offline. For online activities, audience are able to “like”, “label” their favorite characters and share the link of this activity to WeChat moments or Sina Weibo with HTML5.0 technology. For offline ones, audience present can take photos with the 9 cartoon characters in the Art Hall of Hunan Museum on the first floor and label the time travelers with characteristics deemed proper to them. In addition to the animated videos, our design team digs deep in its contents. Being centered on several cartoon characters and featuring fineness and practicality, a batch of cultural and creative animation derivatives are developed, and all of which are popular items favored by young people in their trips.  

To better introduce Chinese civilization to foreign audience and boost the appeal of and foreign friends’ recognition for Chinese traditional culture, Travel with the Cultural Treasures is going to be launched at Xinhua News Agency’s overseas social accounts simultaneously. In its English version, the nine characters were dubbed by international students from School of International Education of Central South University. The selection for voice actors and actresses saw active responses and dozens of international students took part in the selection for dubbing cartoon characters. After the selection, the 9 roles came to nine students from nine countries, including England, Canada, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and others. According to many international students, this activity has deepened their understanding of and recognition for traditional Chinese culture and helped them develop knowledge about Chinese culture and its essence. It is hoped that the launching of the cartoon overseas will make it possible for more overseas audience to discover the beauty of traditional Chinese culture and giving a boost to the international influence of Chinese civilization, said the students.