New museum offers folk art classes
A visitor takes a picture in front of Haipai Museum on Sunday.
Haipai Museum, which features folk art, welcomed thousands of visitors on its third day on Sunday, including foreign students from East China Normal University.
The museum is currently holding series of handcraft classes, comic exhibitions and lectures in intangible cultural heritage. The free classes include dough modelling, paper cutting and woodcut printing. Anyone interested can sign up for free by following the museum's WeChat account.
During their visit, students from East Asia, Russia and Europe learned tian-tsui, a delicate art that uses kingfisher feathers to make jewelry.
“After we learned about the classes we just signed up,” said Aizada Rasulbekova from Kyrgyzstan. “Tian-tsui is really difficult and requires a lot of patience. A tiny piece of jewellery includes so many details. ”
“I watched a TV series about ancient China when I was in Bangladesh, and the jewelry we learned to make today looks like what a queen would wear on her head,” said Mohammad Sohag Rana.
“All places were booked in seconds after we released information about classes,” said Lu Qiwen, chief of Shanghai Federation of Literary and Art Circles. “This morning alone we had more than 1,200 visitors. Though the location isn’t in the city center, a lot of people are showing up.”
The museum is run by the federation and the Minhang government. Together with Minhang Museum and the Powerlong Art Museum next door, the three locales form a powerful cultural hub.
“The museum is dedicated to bringing art closer to citizens and foreigner friends. Everybody deserves the chance to learn and experience the beauty of traditional art,” said Lu.
One of the opening shows at the new facility was an exhibition of artworks by Feng Zikai (1898-1975), the first for the artist in Shanghai since 1981.
The museum also selected 60 pieces from the Shanghai Artists Association’s collection to chart the development of art in Shanghai since the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644).
