Wang, Atoms and bits of cultural heritage - The use of Dunhuang collections

The Dunhuang collections, discovered from the Silk Roads of Chinese Turkestan during the Great Game, are rarely discussed in museology or heritage studies. This book is to bridge this knowledge gap by exploring their uses in knowledge making, empire and nation building, heritage and museum diplomacy, cultural tourism and innovation economy. With historical method, this research reconstructs the biography of Dunhuang objects from the Belle Epoque to the Digital Age in both the West and China. As material witnesses of rich cultural exchanges that are (de-/re-) contextualized into dozens of GLAMs worldwide, they are the very first to be reunited in virtual space. Either being scientific specimens, works of (fine) art, colonial acquisitions, public property, national treasures, token of diplomatic ties, tourism destination or digital content for experience economy, their lives shaped by entangled history will continue, as seen in the Belt and Road Initiatives of China Dream and beyond. Kuva: