Rendering №4

The article published on the website of “The Art Newspaper” on February 12, 2013 is headlined “Life on the South China Sea”. It carries a lot of comment on the reopening of the Hong Kong Maritime Museum. The author of the article reports at length that the museum is due to reopen on 26 February in a three-storey pier in the city’s central business district. It’s an open secret that the space will boast coveted views of Victoria Harbour and, at 35,000 sq. ft, will be six times bigger than the museum’s previous home, a colonial building in Stanley, a suburb of Hong Kong.

Speaking of the museum, it is interesting to note that one of its highlights is a rare and highly detailed Qing Dynasty scroll which records the Imperial navy’s successful campaign to quell piracy along the Guangdong coast. The author makes it clear that the work was acquired by the museum from a French family’s collection in 2006, and was made by an unknown artist in the early 1800s, around the time of the campaign. Moreover, it was revealed that at any given time the institution will display more than 1,000 of the 5,000 objects in its collection, as well as items on long-term loan from individuals. Besides, Anthony Hardy says that the museum also plans to bring at least two major exhibitions from world-class collections to Hong Kong in 2013.

Giving appraisal to the situation, it is necessary to point out that the museum is turned into “a high-tech, modern museum”, and the new space will include 13 permanent galleries, , two spaces for visiting exhibitions, a cafe and two shops. Besides, there is a general feeling to believe that the museum, with its new, more convenient location and larger floor plan, can attract at least 140,000 visitors in its first year—more than triple the number it drew in Stanley.

The article draws a conclusion that although the museum has the backing of the government, it is a privately run institution, and will be financed primarily by funding from the local shipping industry. For instance, Hardy, who is a collector, was the chairman of the Wallem Group shipping company until 2006, when he retired and focused his energy on the maritime museum. Richard Wesley, who has worked in historical museums in Australia, is the museum’s director. As for me, I think that the reconstruction will help Chinese as well as people from other countries to expand their knowledge of Hong Kong’s history as a world maritime capital, the evolution of seafaring life through the centuries, and the development of China’s export trade in ceramics and other coastal-based trades and industries.