The "beauty" that keeps walking empowers a better life in Shencheng

110 years ago, 19-year-old Mei Lanfang came to Shanghai for the first time to perform, which opened his love affair with Shanghai for nearly half a century, and also profoundly influenced Mei Lanfang and the development of Peking Opera art. ......Last Sunday, under the leadership of volunteer Liu Yuying, a group of visitors who visited the special exhibition "Mei Blooming Oriental - Mei Lanfang in Shanghai" set off from the Shanghai History Museum to follow Mei Lanfang's footsteps and feel the openness, innovation and tolerance of the city.

This is the fourth event of the "Mei Lanfang's Shanghai Stage Map" guided tour outside the City Walk. In conjunction with the special exhibition of "Plum Blossom Oriental" on display, Shanghai Libo has planned more than 100 aesthetic education activities in ten categories...... The supply of high-quality public art education to meet the needs of citizens for a high-quality life has now become the consciousness of more and more professional cultural venues and institutions in Shanghai.

Shanghai has innovatively implemented the cultural project to benefit the people, and included "building 100 'social aesthetic education' classrooms and launching 5,000 art popularization education activities" as a private practical project in 2023, so that professional art resources throughout the city can be transformed into social aesthetic education resources and empower a better life. By the end of November, 113 professional cultural venues and institutions, including the Shanghai Museum, Shanghai Library, China Art Palace, and Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, had joined the "Social Aesthetic Education" class, and a total of 7,435 art popularization education activities had been held in the city, with completion rates of 113% and 148.7% respectively. At present, all kinds of aesthetic education activities are still being updated. The "beauty" that keeps walking penetrates the urban fabric and integrates into the lives of the masses, becoming a vivid footnote to the people's city. "It's a job that requires perseverance. We hope to nourish people with 'social aesthetic education', promote the whole city to walk with beauty, and contribute to the construction of Xi Jinping's best practice of cultural thought." Fang Shizhong, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and Director of the Shanghai Municipal Administration of Culture and Tourism, said.

Penetrate the urban fabric and reach a wider range of people

The People's Square Pavilion of Shangbo, which has been away for two months, has recently become lively again: under the joint effect of the "Dialogue with Leonardo da Vinci - Renaissance and Oriental Aesthetics Art Special Exhibition" and some permanent exhibitions such as the Chinese Calligraphy Museum and the Chinese Painting Gallery, the museum has received about 8,000 people every open day since its reopening, and the "people follow the crowd" mode has been reproduced inside and outside the museum. Under the high level of operation, the museum still has its hands free to hold various aesthetic education activities. Recently, there have been more than 10 public academic lectures related to popular exhibitions, as well as youth aesthetic education workshops and special lectures for students, guiding the audience to understand the doorway in the dialogue between Eastern and Western paintings.

While bringing in citizens and tourists, Shangbo will send out cultural and museum resources to empower the "15-minute community life circle". "In the past two years, the 'Why China' series of exhibitions have attracted wide social repercussions and attention, and we have taken this opportunity to specially plan the 'Why China' cultural relics and archaeology theme exhibition into the community, showing the high-quality and rich collection resources and the latest archaeological discoveries to the community residents in the form of pictures and texts, so that the content experience of the museum can be reached at the doorstep. Tang Shifen, Secretary of the Party Committee of Shangbo, revealed that the tour is planned to go to many streets in Changning District and Huangpu District, in addition to the graphic exhibition, it will also be supported by light games, lectures, workshops and other activities, which is expected to cover tens of thousands of people.

In fact, in order to allow aesthetic education to reach a wider range of people, many professional cultural venues and institutions are opening up their walls and turning into doppelgangers. The Shanghai Symphony Orchestra launched the "Classical in the City" aesthetic education activity, and young musicians walked into Shanghai's historical buildings, city parks, and trendy landmarks to interact with the citizens in music. The China Art Museum (Shanghai Art Museum) and the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts of Shanghai University have joined hands to create a "mini art museum" in the elevator of the old community in Lujiazui Street, allowing residents to get close to Shanghai-style art in the "up and down". The "Drama Art Hall" in Shanghai Culture Square builds a game scene with a sense of age in the public green space, leading participants to "travel" through time and space, connecting the memories of several generations......

Pay attention to the sense of fun and participation, and let beauty infiltrate the soul

To break down the barriers between art and citizens, in addition to shortening the physical distance, it is also necessary to shorten the psychological distance. The "Social Aesthetic Education" class makes a fuss about fun and participation, so that beauty can be integrated into daily life and infiltrate the soul.

The rubbings of the inscriptions are rich in connotation, which is the embodiment of the excellent traditional Chinese culture with broad and profound profoundness, and the threshold for appreciation is relatively high. In order to attract more people to enter the exhibition hall, the "Han Dynasty Heroic Style: Shanghai Library Collection of Han Tablet Rare Books Exhibition" combined with the current hot trend of stamp collection, launched a character collection activity, picking out the words "Fu", "Le" and "Dragon" in the famous products, if the audience successfully finds them in the exhibition hall, they can stamp the corresponding limited stamps. Many viewers who participated in the stamp collection found that in the process of searching for characters, they had a general idea of the different styles of Hanli characters and the phenomenon of stone flower loss, thus deepening their impression of the traditional gold and stone culture.

"Mom, you see, this is the home I built for 'Mibao'. "Hao Hao, who is not much taller than a table, proudly displays his wonderful cottage made of patchwork. The "honey treasure" in his mouth is the mascot of the Shanghai Children's Library, and the "Little Art Connoisseur" aesthetic education class here is the reason why he walks in again and again. So far, the class has held 131 online and offline activities, tailor-made for children aged 3 to 14 with a variety of courses such as exhibition tours, lectures, illustration, handicrafts, architecture, etc. "As an important information channel and public space carrier for reading the world and reading life, the aesthetic education class in the library is not simply artistic enlightenment and skill training, but also hopes to help children grow up in an all-round way, so that the 'art world' in the fragrance of books and ink will become the spiritual nutrients for children to grow up, be good and beautiful. Yang Yanna, director of the Shanghai Children's Library, said.

To meet the needs of people of different ages, knowledge backgrounds, and interests, the Art Museum of Shanghai Oil Painting and Sculpture Institute has created a "trilogy of aesthetic education". Among them, the "One Hour at Noon" is mainly used as an art micro-guide to enrich the lunch time of the surrounding white-collar workers and residents, the "Aesthetic Education Classroom" is mainly for parent-child families or young students, planning different theme types of art activities, and the "Academic Lounge" allows academics to benefit the public through immersive brainstorming by professionals.

Kuai Dashen, a member of the National Committee of Experts on Culture and Tourism Public Service and a researcher at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said that with the rapid economic and social development of the mainland, the spiritual and cultural needs of the people have continued to grow, and the pursuit of a higher quality of artistic life has become more eager. "Shanghai's solid promotion of 'social aesthetic education' as a practical project for the people is an echo of the people's ardent expectations, and it is also a sincere practice of the people's city concept with real culture to benefit the people. ”