Cultural Creativity in Qing China 1796-1912

This original, interdisciplinary and international project will conduct the first genre-spanning study of how Chinese cultural creativity during the long final century of the Qing empire (1796-1912) demonstrated extraordinary resilience amid exceptional levels of violence, and political and social turmoil. We will examine how these convulsions catalysed innovation in material culture (including print, painting, calligraphy, ceramics, textiles, architecture and photography) during a century in which China's art, literature, crafts and technology faced unprecedented exposure to global influences. 1796 - the official end of the reign period of the Qianlong emperor - is viewed as the end of the 'high Qing' and the start of a period of protracted crisis. In 1912, the last emperor, Puyi, abdicated after the revolution of 1911, bringing to an end some 2,000 years of dynastic rule and making way for the republic. The research will explore the distinctive ways in which material culture illuminates changing political and social identities (especially in groups often excluded from the written record) and lived experience at many levels of society, and supports or subverts textual narratives. It will innovate by uniting museum and academic expertise in late imperial China, and fully integrating material and visual culture with textual history, to collaborate on research that through publications and a major exhibition will communicate to diverse audiences a new narrative about late Qing rule.

There is a pressing need to revisit, through the prism of material culture, the late Qing era, which until recently has been mainly defined as an era of cultural stagnation and 'national humiliation'. This project will build on recent scholarship to establish a new understanding of 19th-century China's innovations and create a detailed visual account of its responses to war, technology, urbanisation, political identities and external influences. The research also has urgent contemporary resonance. This century forms a crucial bridge to the modern, post-imperial era. Interpretations of the 19th century are fundamental to governance, culture and political legitimacy in China today. In contemporary China, conflicts with Western and Japanese imperialism in the 19th century remain at the front of public memory. Analysts look to the late imperial period to understand the factors that underpin China's current success, as well as the history of strategies to meet enduring political, economic, social, ethnic and environmental challenges. Now that the People's Republic of China (PRC) is reasserting itself internationally, we need to understand the origins and nature of the multi-ethnic modern Chinese state for clues about the kind of global player the PRC is becoming. Disseminating cutting-edge research reliant on 19th-century primary sources to as broad an audience as possible is essential to maintaining rigorous, evidence-based debate about China's past and present. Through academic and public outreach, this project will effectively convey the complexity of this crucial era to both constituencies.

The project will have a lasting impact through - in addition to its major exhibition and accompanying book of essays - an international conference and edited volume examining material culture via key themes in late imperial Chinese history: war, empire, localisation and globalisation. The questions raised will help shape the next generation of scholarship. Relying on global collaborations, the research will facilitate dialogue among and between international experts on 19th-century China, and general audiences. It will enable both established and early career scholars to conduct research that will enhance their careers and forge strong links between museums and universities across Asia, Europe and the US. It will highlight individual responses to the century's challenges and crises, charting the diversity of experience across China's society and landscape.

By underpinning a major exhibition at the British Museum (running for 4 months in 2022), this project will integrate academic outcomes with public impact. There are clear cultural and economic benefits to engaging diverse domestic and international audiences with Chinese history. The last two decades have witnessed China's rise to global economic and political superpower status. But with disagreements between China and Western countries on the rise, the need for general, as well as specialist, audiences to understand in greater depth Chinese history (and the ways that its recent past informs its present) is urgent. Uniting investigators from the British Museum and London University will ensure academic rigour and also the widest possible dissemination of the project's findings. This will raise general interest, awareness and knowledge about late imperial China.

This research will have impact on:
Regular London exhibition visitors (UK and international)
Based on recent major British Museum exhibitions, the exhibition will attract at least 150,000 visitors motivated to learn more about Chinese history. Most of these will be from the UK (75-80%) with a high proportion from British-Chinese and Chinese residents. (Last year the Museum welcomed 382,200 visitors who identified as Chinese.) An estimated 10,000 will attend accompanying talks, debates and performances. On average 5%-10% of visitors buy the accompanying exhibition book (c.7,500-15,000 copies).

Wider audiences
The themes and content of the exhibition will reach audiences beyond its visitors. Domestic and international press, history and art magazine, television and radio coverage of the exhibitions will reach large numbers; there will be c. 1,000,000 visits to supporting web materials, including the British Museum's website in China. Previous major shows have worked with other museums across the UK to create highlight object tours which bring new insights to regional museum collections.

Journalists and commentators; opinion-formers in media and politics
A major exhibition provides a proven way to engage journalists, commentators and other writers with the key themes of 19th-century China.

School teachers and pupils
The exhibition will be supported by an ambitious schools, community and public programme with educational materials and events for visiting school groups and teachers, which will encourage more schools to cover 19th-century China in their teaching.

Museum curators and professionals
The exhibition will provide material and knowledge transfer for other museum curators and professionals through forms of display, choice of content and interpretation. New information and perspectives on objects found can lead to the reinterpretation of similar objects in other institutions. The project will also hold a workshop in China to engage museum professionals with the research and exhibition.

The British Museum
This research enhances the Museum's delivery of an exhibition intended to change UK engagement with Chinese history. The British Museum, a publicly funded institution, will benefit from the major commercial sponsorship needed to pay for the exhibition, ticket sales, and revenue generated in Museum shops and cafes from visitors. At a time of significantly reduced government funding to the Museum, this revenue underpins the delivery of the exhibition and supports the Museum's wider activities. British Museum exhibitions provide wider economic benefits for London through revenues generated by national and international visitors.The Museum's partnership with other UK museums will also benefit, through touring a selection of the exhibition to other institutions, thereby generating nationwide engagement.

The project will promote relationships between UK government and industry, and China. They will build partnerships with cultural organisations and strengthen diplomatic connections though formal visits and informal tours.