Meet the Speakers | Museums: Safeguarding cultural heritage and building a shared future for mankind
Date：2023-05-12
Museums play an essential role in the preservation and protection of cultural heritage, serving as custodians of our collective history and identity. Through their collections, museums provide a tangible link to the past, allowing us to better understand and appreciate the diverse cultures that have shaped our world. However, in today's rapidly changing world, cultural heritage is increasingly at risk due to natural disasters, war, and human activity.
The third session of the third dialogue of the China-Europe-America Museums Cooperation Initiative, featuring outstanding speakers from cultural institutions, universities, and museums in different countries, will explore why museums are crucial to the protection of cultural heritage and how they can increase the awareness of a shared future for mankind by better protecting arts and culture.
Meet the Speakers
Yuan Shengwen is the associate dean, professor and doctoral supervisor of the Faculty of History, Nankai University. He is a member of the Song, Yuan and Ming Dynasties Archaeology Committee of China Archaeological Society and a member of the Chinese Society for Ancient Ceramics. His research interests include Chinese ceramics and archaeology, ancient Chinese jade, archaeology and material culture of Song, Yuan and Ming Dynasties. He has led and participated at several national, provincial and ministerial level scientific research projects. He has published one monograph and more than thirty papers in journals such as Archaeology, Huaxia Archaeology, and Journal of the National Museum of China. He is one of the lead authors of Introduction to the Study of Cultural Relics, a key textbook certified by China’s Ministry of Education.
Tess Davis, a lawyer and archaeologist by training, is Executive Director of the Antiquities Coalition. She oversees the organization’s work to fight cultural racketeering and also manages the day-to-day operations of the institute’s staff in Washington, DC, as well as programs overseas. Since 2013, Davis has been affiliated with the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, at the University of Glasgow. She came to Scotland from the Lawyers’ Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation where she was Executive Director until 2012. Davis has been a legal consultant for the Cambodian and US governments and works with both the art world and law enforcement to keep looted antiquities off the market. She writes and speaks widely on these issues. After graduating magna cum laude from Boston University with a Bachelor of Arts in Archaeology, Davis earned her Juris Doctor from the University of Georgia School of Law. She now serves on the Board of Directors at the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) and the Advisory Boards of Heritage Watch and the Ocean Foundation. She is admitted to the New York State Bar. In 2015, the Royal Government of Cambodia knighted Davis for her work to recover the country’s plundered treasures, awarding her the rank of Commander in the Royal Order of the Sahametrei.
Jingwen Zhang. Ph.D. in history. Dr. Zhang is the deputy director of the Nankai University Museum, the deputy head of the Museological and Archaeological Laboratory, the deputy head of the Museological and Archaeological Research Center, associate professor, and master supervisor. Dr. Zhang’s major research fields include museum exhibition and educational activities, theories and methods of the visualization of cultural relics information, innovation application of the digital activation of cultural relics, and game-based learning in museums. As the project leader, Dr. Zhang presided over more than 20 programs, including Key Programs Supported by the National Social Science Fund of China, Strategic Research Projects of Ministry of Education of China, Programs supported by the Tianjin Social Science Fund and the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and programs entrusted by other governments and public institutions. Dr. Zhang has published over 20 academic articles in core journals at home and abroad including the Journal of Cultural Heritage, Museum Management and Curatorship and Southeast Culture. Dr. Zhang has also presided over the curating and implementation of more than 30 exhibitions of museums, art galleries and so on.
Renata Codello, General Secretary of the Fondazione Giorgio Cini. A former Director of Institutional Affairs at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Codello is an architect and, since 11 June 2020, a member of the Bank of Italy Board of Directors. In her long career she has held several important positions: Superintendent of Architectural and Landscape Heritage of Venice and its Lagoon (2006 to 2014) and of the Eastern Veneto (2009); Superintendent of Fine Arts and Landscape in Rome and Director of the Regional Secretariat of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism for the Veneto (2015 to March 2018).
Katie Chan, Chairwoman of the Art Concept Culture Institute. As a cultural organization established in Hongkong in 2010, Art Concept Culture Institute is committed to public welfare undertakings such as international cultural and artistic exchanges, healthcare, education, and people’s livelihood, seeking to deepen mutual understanding between people, promote friendship between countries, enhance social development and international cooperation, maintain world peace, and bring prosperity and stability to mankind. Ms. Katie Chan is a film and television producer and columnist and is mainly engaged in international public welfare and cultural activities. Since 2000, her business has expanded to Beijing, where she regularly organizes large-scale cultural and artistic events and holds multiple public positions.
Qian Wu was born in Xiamen, China, took up art from a very young age. He graduated from the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University, and received master degree from the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University. From 2011 to 2016, he studied at the Art Students League of New York. He completed the first advanced research class on abstract art at Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2020, and he served as a visiting scholar at the China National Academy of Painting from 2021 to 2022. He has held solo exhibitions in cities such as New York, Venice, Shanghai and Shenzhen.
