Fashion Week | City Memory·Photo Exhibition of Fashion Timeline in Countries along the Belt and Road Routes Held in DHU

Date：2018-04-08

In the afternoon of May 23, the opening ceremony of “City Memory·Photo Exhibition of Fashion Timeline in Countries along the Belt and Road Routes,” presided over by Wang Kebin, the Editor in Chief at Donghua University Press, was held in the Shanghai Museum of Textile and Costume. Liu Chunhong, Vice President of Donghua University (DHU), declared the opening of the exhibition first. Then, Ni Yangsheng, President of China Textile and Apparel Education Society, Gu Bohong, Dean of International Cultural Exchange School, and Bian Xiangyang, Curator of Shanghai Museum of Textile and Costume delivered speeches respectively. Professor Ke Ling from the International Cultural Exchange School shared the stories of photo collection for this exhibition and Ma Kaini from Kenya made a speech as the representative of international students. Besides, Gu Bohong and Wu Xiaojun, Deputy Dean of International Cultural Exchange School, issued the Commemorative Certificate of Participation for international students engaged in the collection of exhibited photos.

(Vice President Liu Chunhong declared the opening of exhibition)

International students from the International Cultural Exchange School, dressed in respective national costume, introduced and explained the photos they have collected for visitors.

(Exhibition site)

Narration of Silk Road Culture

Succeeding the “City Memory·Photo Exhibition of Fashion Timeline in New China” last year, this year the exhibition targets the countries along the B&R routes, aiming to integrate the silk road clothing resources and mine the contents of major science and technology, art archeology, world cultural heritage, folk culture, silk road literature and fashion trends that cover 12 silk road areas. The exhibited over 180 photos, standing out from over 1,000 photos collected by 31 international students of DHU from 28 countries largely along the B&R routes such as Kazakhstan, Cambodia, Pakistan, Iran and Russia, are displayed based on 6 scenes, i.e., family portrait, wedding dress, national costume, life photos, travel photos and school uniform, spanning nearly a hundred years from the early 20th century to the early 21st century.

Tell the Story of Silk Road as a Cultural Messenger

In the process of spontaneous collection, participation in exhibition and narration, apart from reviewing the history of motherland and old stories, these international students play the role of “B&R” cultural messenger to promote cultural communications and exchanges between different countries.

For instance, student Mary from Iran offered a life photo taken in 1990s. She told us that the photo presented a ritual for environmental protection, especially protecting Damavand, the highest famous mountain in Iran at an altitude of 5,600 meters. A traditional band dressed in traditional costume wrote traditional poems with traditional instruments. Mary recently attended the exhibition at Belt and Road Forum in Beijing. She was excited to see Iran’s booth displaying various handicrafts and hopes to be able to attend the 2^nd Belt and Road Forum as a staff member in 2019.

(Traditional band dressed in traditional costume in support of Environmentalism)

Zhong Yanqiao from Malaysia said her ancestors travelled south to Malaysia from coastal areas in China. She searched several generations of home photos, but it’s unfortunate that many photos were destroyed by the floods before she was born, which made the remaining photos particularly precious. Below is the wedding photo of her cousin’s grandma in 1950s. “This is a testimony for Chinese people’s trace on Silk Road. It’s an arduous journey for my ancestors to come to Southeast Asia. It’s really a shock for me to a photo taken at that time!”

(Wedding photo of cousin’s grandma of Zhong Yanqiao from Malaysia)

Distinct CharacteristicsAssist “B&R”

In recent years, DHU has been engaged in international educational cooperation with both overseas and domestic universities and institutions to comply with national development strategies by virtue of strengths in characteristic disciplines such as textiles, fashion and materials, playing a positive role in promoting mutual understanding between peoples, national exchanges, industrial development and capacity cooperation under the Belt and Road (B&R) initiative.

Kenya is the destination of Maritime Silk Road in Africa. Owing to the “20+20 Cooperation Plan for Chinese and African Institutions of Higher Education,” DHU and Kenya’s Moi University co-founded the world’s first Confucius Institute characterized by textile and costume education in 2015. In 2016, DHU and Moi University jointly hosted the Sino-Africa International Symposium on Textiles and Apparel and Sino-African Cultural Exchange Forum. The first “B&R” Advanced Seminars for Textile Industry International Cooperation in Production Capacity was held in DHU this March. In addition, the Studio of Creative and Cultural Exchange and Research of Cities along the B&R Routes was unveiled in the base of DHU in 2016.

According to Jiang Zhiwei, Director of Donghua University Press, the photo collection is the first project under the cooperation between the Press and the Studio, which serves as the sub-library of “Silk Road costume” resource database for continuous and in-depth collection of international classic fashion elements.

Attached:

Representative photos of City Memory·Photo Exhibition of Fashion Timeline in Countries along the Belt and Road Routes

1. Family Portrait