If the history cannot be narrated by the young generation’s language,
then history will eventually lose young generation;
and the young generation will also lose the history.
Shan Jixiang (former director of the Palace Museum)
Nanhai Culture is original from Lingnan Culture, and as one of the representatives of Lingnan Culture, Nanhai Achieve Center has always wished to build a local chronicles museum, which can keep records and make people know more about Nanhai culture; and it should be presented to visitors in the way of being “the most interesting local records museum”.
Finally, the project team has decided to take the local chronicles as the basis, the local customs and practices as the guide; folklore, cuisine and other local customs and practices as the starting point, and present the local culture of Nanhai through the emphasis of lighting and with interactive gamification exhibitions.Kuixingge is a book for local chronicles, as well as a book for spacial records.
Architecture and urban texture of Nanhai have been presented perfectly. One glance eternity, the 3D light and shadow transformed by the three-dimensional sand table show the thousand-year evolution of the Nanhai from the Qin Dynasty to the present.The exhibition flow has been divided into four sections, and each of them has its own theme color. Therefore, we choose natural white light with 4000K color temperature for the overall lighting colour, so that the display boards of each theme color can be presented uniformly, and the entire exhibition can be unified on the general tone of the lighting.
In addition, visitors will not be influenced by the different colour temperature from lighting so that they can be more focus on the exhibition and enjoy the atmosphere in such an aesthetics space.“Habitancy”, “cuisine”, “means of travelling” and “etiquette” have run through the daily life in Nanhai. These local customs and practices are not just displayed in the cabinets as normal exhibition, they are also been exhibited with static models and together with touchable digital screens. Visitors can “feel” these Nanhai folklore and culture in a modern way in this museum.
New media and interactive technology has been integrated into most of the exhibition in this museum. When visitors put their ears close to the “headphone”, they can hear local sayings and folks songs in Nanhai that have been translated into different dialects. With accurate calculation and setting for lighting, it won’t create any un-comfortable feeling or glaring when visitors close to the dialect wall. Comfortable brightness of lighting and accurate lighting position can make visitors ignore the lighting, and feel like that the lighting is one of the elements co-existed with exhibited items.
“Singing in the dragon boat at dusk” is an interaction which has re-present the intensive scenry of the dragon boat competition in an immersive cinema way. Visitors can “participate” into a dragon boat competition via the interactive screen, they can sit on the dragon boat and pull the paddle, which change them from audience into participant. When the experience has finished andhte exhibition hall returns to quiet, the dragon boat is shining under lighting and waiting for next participant to join this journey.
On the interactive screen, light halos spread while visitors’ hands swing; and halos projected by lighting just echo each other, which makes this exhibition become more interesting.
‘The local chronicles’ is the book that narrated the history and records of a place, but it has been always kept in those old books. With new plan concept and the support of new media technology, local history and records can be reborn from those old exhibition concept, which increase the young generation’s desire to know and get touch with it.
When we are willing to get a fully understanding on a place or a culture, we need to know more from the past so that we can be versed in modern affairs. That’s what called “understand the past in order to connect the future”. This is also the meaning of having this Museum for Nanhai Local Customs & Practices and Local Chronicles, which is also a historical value of activating the local chronicles.
