Seventeenth International Conference on the Inclusive Museum

Abstract

The development of rural museums in China is highly related with the attitudes of Chinese official authorities. There are at least two upsurges of rural museums during last 30 years in China. One was promoted by the introduction of idea of “eco-museum” since 1995, while the other was closely related to the Instruction of Museum Reformation and Development in 2021. Zhejiang province, China, has chosen Anji County as experimental unit to try the model of museum clusters in rural areas since 2011 using the name of “eco-museum”, and has proposed a grand plan of building 1000 rural museums responding to the 2021’s Instruction. After the field research in 2022 and policies analysis since 2000s, this study suggests that rural museums in China were still wandering between the community orientation and professionalization. The original idea of “eco-museum” and the 2021’s Instruction were both highly focused on the self-identification and regional development in rural areas. But when such ideas were put into practice, the focus of work was basically about cultural representation from the eyes of outsider elites and transplanting mutual experiences of high-level museums. While there are different topics/models of rural museums, such as celebrity memorial, heritage related, rural history, and rural enterprises, China still faced the issues of hollowing out of rural areas, and limitation of rural educations. Hence, rural museums in China still have to re-question their positions in rural context.