Eye-opening museum another feather in Shanghai's cap

The nation's first art museum about eyes was unveiled inside Shanghai Eye Disease Prevention and Treatment Center on Thursday.

The Explore Light and Shadow Museum takes an artistic approach with its interactive displays to provide information about eyes and eye health. At the entrance, each visitor can choose a vocation such as pilot, athlete and engineer on a role play like tour to experience how our eyes are important for specific jobs.

Each section of the museum has a different focus. For example, visitors can experience how it feels to be blind, learn how the eyes form in a woman's womb, plus find out how the eyes change over the course of our lives. The special light and shadow effects help reinforce the information.

Interactive items are widely arranged at the museum, which has prepared many tools for visitors to practice and learn the theory of vision, eye ball structure and technologies used to diagnose different eye diseases.

Children can learn the importance of eye protection and the harm of myopia through interesting and fun experiences, while adults can gain a better understanding of common eye diseases and the necessity of early detection, intervention and treatment, hospital officials said.

"Our hospital is the only city-level public eye hospital shouldering the responsibility on both eye disease prevention and treatment," said Dr Zou Haidong, the hospital's president. "While pushing medical development, we have been focused on public education. This new museum is a milestone in our education role as it helps promote eye knowledge and enhance public awareness."

The hospital is also encouraging artificial intelligence-assisted eye screening and community- and school-based eye screening projects all over the city.

If you go:

Time: 9am–11am on Saturday (pilot operation now)

Address: Building 21, No. 1440 Hongqiao Road

Reservation: 13371918541