A New China Gallery at Manchester Museum Foreign exchange? University museums and international engagement 3 July 2018 University of Cambridge A New China Gallery at Manchester Museum Bryan Sitch, Deputy Head of Collections

Manchester Museum’s New China Gallery Thanks to the generosity of Manchester Businessman Dr Lee Kai Hung, Manchester Museum will create a new China gallery, opening in 2020/1. This comes at a very exciting time when the Museum is undergoing redevelopment with its ‘Hello Future’ extension, featuring a new South Asia Gallery (with the BM) and a new Special Exhibition Gallery, three times the size of the existing Temporary Exhibition Gallery. The Museum’s Money Gallery will close and the space will be redeveloped for China. China is increasingly important politically and economically and both the University of Manchester and the City Council seek to develop much closer links.  Drawing upon the collections of the Manchester Museums Partnership and those of local and regional museums and galleries we will create engaging and informative displays about China.

China Gallery Content Although we are at an early stage in the project some aspects of the process are clear: With limited gallery space we can hardly provide an in-depth historical account of China. Rather than this being a chronological treatment, the development of the content has to involve - indeed be - a co-production with Chinese communities in Manchester Manchester Museum does not have social history material so reaching out to the community and contemporary collecting is going to be very important. We have started this work but it takes time to develop relationships of trust. We expect the relationship - historical, present and future - between Manchester and China to be one element of this. We have already identified fascinating material in Manchester libraries. There are clearly important local, regional, national and international considerations

China Gallery Content II The new gallery might seek also to challenge some of the stereotypes about China and the Chinese to further the Museum’s mission to bring about understanding between different cultures. We can hardly ignore the unprecedented scale and pace of change in China over the last forty years, which has impacted upon the built and natural environments. There is also potential political sensitivity - the Chinese Communist Party’s ‘Document Nine’ identifies ‘nihilistic’ history or history that does not credit the Party as the agent of China’s success as a threat. There is current debate in the States about the projection of Chinese soft power through the Confucius Institutes. ‘Soft power’ involves controlling the production of knowledge about China. Can we invite institutions such as the CI to join the exhibition-making process but still maintain our independence and avoid any perception that the Museum is acting as a mouthpiece for the Chinese authorities?

Work-in-Progress These concerns should be considered carefully but the methodology of consulting with Chinese communities and representatives of different Chinese cultural organisations - even those that enjoy the tacit approval of the Chinese authorities - seems to offer a way forward. Different views and perspectives might be offered in our China Gallery but it would be up to the visitor to decide how much credence to lend to each of them. Manchester Museum has some experience of mounting exhibitions of this kind. Lindow Man a Bog Body Mystery (2008-9) explored the perspectives of a forensic archaeologist, the person who found the body, an archaeology lecturer at University of Manchester, a woman from the Lindow community, a Pagan, and a Museum curator. The inclusion of a Pagan - though controversial at the time - did not make this a pro-Pagan exhibition. Handled sensitively, representing different views need not make this a propagandist exhibition.