“Shunzhi Emperor’s Tea”, “Luduanxi Journey Series” Mousse Cake, Zhuangfu Old Snow Smoothie.. This summer, many cultural and creative products have become popular in Shenyang’s Forbidden City. Cultural creativity has become the growth point and new business card of Shenyang Palace Museum.
According to statistics, during this year’s “May Day” alone, the total income of cultural and creative activities in the visiting area of Shenyang Palace Museum reached 1.15 million yuan, an increase of 150% over the same period in 2019. Recently, the reporter went into the Forbidden City of Shenyang to explore the “secret” behind its cultural and creative boom.
The integration of cultural creation and life makes cultural relics “live”
According to Su Yang, deputy curator of the Shenyang Palace Museum, the research and development concept of the cultural and creative products of the Shenyang Palace Museum is to let people bring culture home, let the cultural relics hidden in the Qing Palace “live”, and achieve the integration of culture into life, and decorate life with culture.
Facing itself, Shenyang Palace Museum highlights its unique cultural elements and insists on increasing research and development efforts to make the cultural heritage resources in the museum serve the public life to a greater extent. For example, starting with the ancient buildings, we will build the landmark buildings such as the Great Political Hall and the Phoenix Tower into “hot money”; The cultural element symbols are extracted from the cultural relics in the museum for design and development, such as the “King of Khan’s sword chopsticks”, which is taken from the national first-class cultural relic “Nuerhachi Royal Sword” in the Imperial Palace of Shenyang. Today, more than 1000 kinds of cultural and creative products, including the Eight Banners, Yongfu, Antique and other series, have been developed, conveying the humanistic spirit and artistic charm contained in the Qing court.
Facing the public, Shenyang Palace Museum pays attention to audience preferences, combining cultural and creative elements with daily life such as clothing, food, housing and transportation. Taking the use of the image of Luduan as an example, the Imperial Palace of Shenyang held a selection activity of “three favorite cultural relics of the people”, in which “Luduan, a filigree enamel made by the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing Dynasty” was rated as the third place, and then the mythical beasts that had been hidden in the palace for nearly 400 years came into the people’s homes in the form of ice-cream. Su Yang said that what people learn in the classroom is book knowledge, and through a piece of ice cream and chocolate in life, they can better understand the cultural relics and history of Shenyang Palace Museum.
Cultural creativity and fashion collide to shorten the distance between tradition and modernity
Shenyang Palace Museum cultural innovation integrates fashion creative elements and local characteristics, while constantly optimizing the audience’s shopping experience of cultural and creative products, expanding the audience edge of cultural and creative products, and making traditional culture more “innovative”. In 2021, “Zhuangfu” coffee shop, “Zhuangfu” milk tea shop and Shengjing cheongsam restaurant opened successively, which is a new breakthrough in the development of the cultural and creative industry of Shenyang Palace Museum and the result of the integration of traditional culture and fashion life.
Taking the “Zhuangfu” coffee shop as an example, the specialty drink launched in the first phase of “Zhuangfu” combines the Manchu specialty sweet food, Shenyang specialty and the favorite taste of the young people at the moment, and brings a combination of Chinese and Western taste; The moonlit door and kang table in the store, inspired by the design of the Wanzi Kang in Shenyang Palace Museum, can experience the uniqueness of the Manchu living room and display the authentic customs of the Northeast.
During the holidays, more and more young people take photos and punch cards in the “Zhuangfu” coffee shop and “Zhuangfu” milk tea shop. It has become a new trend to “eat” and “take home” cultural relics.
Cultural creativity and digital “hand in hand” to expand the new mode of communication
In recent years, the Shenyang Palace Museum has launched a new process of exploring digital museums. In terms of cultural and creative communication and promotion, it has effectively promoted the development of museum cultural and creative industry by combining online and offline.
Offline, in addition to opening a cultural and creative physical store in the museum, the Shenyang Palace Museum also allows cultural and creative enterprises to go out of the “palace gate” and cooperate with well-known enterprises and brands to achieve the dissemination and application of museum IP. For example, Shenyang Palace Museum and Shengjing Dragon City cooperated to create a cultural and creative brand franchise store “Shengjing Palace Appreciation” to promote the development of cultural industry.
Online, Shenyang Palace Museum combines the means of the Internet with traditional historical content. It not only sells cultural and creative products on platforms such as Taobao, but also carries out live promotion on multiple platforms such as Weibo. The series of “aesthetic education, beauty ware, beauty clothing” launched with the theme of cultural and creative products of Shenyang Palace Museum has been broadcast live online, with a total of millions of views in three days; Cultural and creative ice-cream went into an e-commerce live broadcast room and 10000 copies were sold out. In addition, the Palace Museum of Shenyang has implanted cultural creativity into the online social scene, trying to communicate and discuss history and culture with more people in a younger and socialized way. For example, the Palace Museum of Shenyang Luduan Expression Pack is “online on the cloud” at the WeChat expression end, realizing the combination of cultural creativity and new communication mode.
Su Yang said that no matter through online or offline communication, only by allowing cultural and creative products to carry the profound connotation of historical relics into people’s daily life can they be more warm, traditional culture “live”, and museums better serve the public life.