At the "Cultural Heritage and Literary Creation" parallel forum, around the theme of "Creative Transformation and Artistic Rebirth of Cultural Heritage", about 260 Chinese and foreign guests from literature, film and television, cultural museums, fine arts, media and other fields conducted exchanges.
Guests share creative experiences and integrate cultural heritage into daily life
How to make cultural heritage come alive was the most focused issue discussed that day. The answers from many guests pointed in the same direction, which is to enter the emotions and lives of contemporary people.
In his keynote speech, Alai, vice chairman of the Chinese Writers Association and chairman of the Sichuan Provincial Writers Association, recalled the process of writing his novel "The Story of the Clouds". He said, "I have never denied that great literary works from all over the world, both ancient and modern, have nourished my spirit. But I would also like to say that it is the intangible cultural heritage from the people that makes my works more Chinese, and more emotionally and spiritually powerful."
Hu Qiang, president of the Beijing Film Academy, also holds similar views. He proposed that cultural heritage can become a living tradition only when it enters the emotions and creations of contemporary people. Based on the creative experience of "The Long Season" and "The Hidden Corner", screenwriter Pan Yiran said that characters are the tour guides of the story, and cultural heritage should naturally become a part of the characters behind them, affecting their relationships, choices and even destiny, and be presented silently in the story.
British video blogger Szeto Jianguo said from the perspective of overseas communication: When introducing Chinese culture to foreign audiences, don’t start with “what it is” but “why it is interesting.” The best way is to record the real lives of ordinary people and let them see that cultural heritage has been integrated into people’s daily lives.
From the stage to the exhibition hall, explore new paths for the transformation of cultural heritage
Tian Qinxin, director of the National Theater of China, took three works as examples to explain the transformation path of stage art into cultural heritage. The drama "Beijing Fayuan Temple" revitalizes the screen walls, plaques and the interior of the Main Hall of the thousand-year-old temple to the stage, with Chang Xin frequently performing in the ten years since its premiere; the musical drama "Being Called Dunhuang" uses artificial intelligence, 3D special effects, real-time shooting and other technical means to restore the appearance of the murals and painted sculptures when they were first built; the drama "Green Snake", which has been rearranged after 13 years, uses young actors born after 2000 to keep folklore alive among young audiences.
Pan Yikui, Director of the National Art Museum of China, introduced the museum’s exploration of revitalizing cultural heritage. Since 2023, the National Art Museum of China has cooperated with more than 20 museums across the country to launch 10 "Mo Yunwen" series of exhibitions, forming a "museum plus art gallery" exhibition brand. Some cultural relics exhibits even "drain traffic" to local museums after the exhibition. The National Freehand Art Exhibition launched in September 2025, "Valuing Care and Tributing to Classics", brings together nearly 600 ancient and modern masterpieces. The original "Xiaoxiang Bamboo and Stone Pictures" by Su Dongpo is displayed in the same hall as new works by contemporary artists. The number of visitors increased by more than 60% compared with the same period last year.
Artificial intelligence cannot replace the emotional investment of creators
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a keyword that has been discussed repeatedly on the forum, and the attitudes of the guests are quite consistent.
Li Yang, dean of the School of Arts at Peking University, proposed that artificial intelligence gives cultural heritage not only digital life, but also a "relational life", allowing isolated cultural relics to re-enter the vast cultural network; artificial intelligence can not only restore history that has happened, but also carry out "possibility archeology" and present a variety of reasonable explanations under the constraints of historical materials. He also reminded that in the era of artificial intelligence, a new "image ethics" needs to be established. Each generated image should be able to clearly explain which parts come from original remains, which parts come from expert judgment, and which parts are generated by algorithms.
Hu Qiang echoed this judgment from the perspective of creative education: the stronger the technology, the more important aesthetics. Art education must cultivate people who can understand beauty, discover beauty, shape beauty, spread beauty, and inherit beauty. Zhong Liansheng, a national-level intangible inheritor of cloisonné skills, gave the boundaries of the use of artificial intelligence: the younger generation of inheritors are already using artificial intelligence to assist design, but it cannot replace the emotional investment of the creator and the inheritance of Chinese culture.
Text/reporter Zu Weiwei
