Nestled alongside the picturesque West Lake in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, the China Silk Museum stands out as the largest specialized museum in the world dedicated to the collection, research, preservation, and display of textile and costume history.

Among its treasures, visitors flock to a unique section known as the “Digital Museum of the Silk Road,” which has become a beloved hotspot for young people. Today, we take a closer look at this intriguing digital platform.

As you step into the Fashion Gallery at the China Silk Museum, the exhibition “Jiu Tian Chang He: Chang’an on the Silk Road” is currently drawing significant attention from attendees. This exhibition invites spectators to reflect on a time when influential merchants and rich cultural exchanges flourished in Chang’an, the ancient starting point of the Silk Road, serving as a bustling hub for trade between East and West.

In a modern twist, the treasures of the Silk Road are now accessible through a computer at the China Silk Museum. Launched in 2021, the Silk Road Digital Museum (SROM) was developed in collaboration with over 40 museums from 18 countries, including China, the UK, the US, and Russia. This platform serves as a comprehensive hub for digital collections, exhibitions, knowledge sharing, and virtual curation. Visitors can explore more than 2,600 digital artifacts from over 50 museums spanning 18 countries and an extensive collection of over 3,300 digital relics from the Song Dynasty cultural exhibition library. This initiative breaks the limitations of physical collections, offering numerous themed online exhibitions to the public.

Liu Zecheng, a digital platform developer, shares insights: “Using filtering and search options, users can quickly locate specific artifacts. For instance, this Tang Dynasty lion-patterned brocade, housed in the China Silk Museum, represents one of the classic designs from the Silk Road. We can view it in 3D and even consider collecting it.”

In the virtual 3D exhibition space, guests can pause to admire each artifact, listen to the stories of the Silk Road, and appreciate the ongoing dialogue between Eastern and Western civilizations. Digital technology breathes new life into immovable artifacts, making thousands of precious pieces available in the “cloud,” bringing culture to everyone’s home. For example, the museum’s first online exhibition showcases over 30 different materials, including national treasures, delicate murals, and fragile porcelain. This 3D virtual display allows for the showcasing of items that are typically hard to transport, minimizing the risks and costs involved.

Visitor Liang Xia remarks, “The online digital museum allows us to view more than 5,000 exquisite artifacts without stepping outside. It’s incredibly convenient.”

In partnership with tech companies, the China Silk Museum has pioneered a “cloud-curation” feature, inspiring numerous creators to showcase their talents. By creating a “Digital Exhibition Cloud Design Toolbox,” it enables users to design 3D virtual spaces, achieve professional lighting quickly, and produce immersive video tours with just one click. This tool allows for the simulation of physical exhibit halls or the creation of entirely virtual spaces to display artifacts from around the globe in a unified presentation.

The intuitive curatorial model has captivated countless cultural heritage enthusiasts and participants from various fields. The first Silk Road Cloud Curatorial Competition in 2022 garnered attention from 270,000 designers. Over the past three years, this series of competitions has attracted more than 80,000 registered users, with over 2,400 participants competing in exhibition design contests, involving more than 220 universities and producing over 400 exhibitions that have welcomed over 800,000 visitors. A notable exhibition, “Guests from Kunlun,” conceptualized by PhD student Zhang Longyu and his team from Zhejiang University, won the Silver Award at the third Cloud Curatorial Competition.

Zhang Longyu shares, “Our curatorial concept focuses on the language, clothing, and culture of the Silk Road during the prosperous Tang Dynasty. We used artifacts from 45 museums worldwide, consisting of 187 sets as our curatorial materials. The platform is incredibly user-friendly and facilitates multi-lingual, multicultural collaborations.”

Looking ahead, the China Silk Museum plans to broaden the themes in its exhibitions from the “Silk Road” to encompass more aspects of Chinese culture. Additionally, there are plans to enhance the platform’s openness and interactivity to promote in-depth understanding of Chinese culture globally.

Deputy Director of the China Silk Museum, Zhang Chengming, states, “The Silk Road Digital Museum online platform embodies China’s technological leadership. We gather museums from around the world to this platform, where they not only share artifacts but also contribute their insights and collaborate with us. In the future, we will continue to leverage the Silk Road Digital Museum platform to advance digital integration within the international cultural heritage community and foster mutual understanding among civilizations.”