City University of Hong Kong “Sincerely Yours: Personal Letters of Tsinghua Scholars” Exhibition
We would like to invite you to cover the following event:
Event: City University of Hong Kong “Sincerely Yours: Personal Letters of Tsinghua Scholars” Exhibition
Date: 27 September 2017 (Wednesday)
Media preview
Time: 4:30–5:30 pm
Venue: CityU Exhibition Gallery, 18/F, Lau Ming Wai Academic Building, CityU
Spokespersons: Professor Jeffrey Shaw, Chair Professor of CityU School of Creative Media
Dr Isabelle Frank, Director of CityU Exhibition Gallery
Mr Kevin Lam Ka-ming, Manager of CityU Exhibition Gallery
- Hu Shi, the main leader of the New Culture Movement, wrote a cordial letter to his friend’s daughter asking the beloved youngster to “play more”.
- Distinguished writers including Liang Shi-qiu, Xu Zhi-mo and Wen Yiduo enthusiastically joined a programme for translating The Complete Works of William Shakespeare as proposed by Hu Shi.
- One of the four leading scholars of the Tsinghua’s Academy of Chinese Learning, Chen Yingque, wrote an elegiac couplet for his dear friend Wang Guowei that has been greatly praised as the best of its kind.
These are just some of the private thoughts of some of the greatest Chinese scholars of the twentieth century as revealed at an exhibition titled “Sincerely Yours: Personal Letters of Tsinghua Scholars”. On show are some 134 unpublished letters, manuscripts and teaching materials that were hand-written by the likes of the Tsinghua scholars.
The materials, on loan from Tsinghua University in Beijing, provide keen insight into the intellectual development of China. This event also marks the first time that many precious manuscripts by these authors have been shown at a single exhibition in Hong Kong. We hope that the public can appreciate these scholars’ contributions to various branches of the arts and sciences as they read the transcribed letters at the exhibition.
Through the interactive artwork Get Inspired by Tsinghua Scholars developed by CityU’s School of Creative Media, visitors can create their own letters using the hand-written words of the scholars. Another installation, New Media and the Art of Chinese Calligraphy, presents a calligraphy performance by the artist Professor Wang Dongling. A tiny video camera attached to a brush provides an immersive close-up of the dynamic creation of each of the painted characters.
The exhibition runs from 9 September to 5 November (open 10am to 7pm ; closed on Mondays) at CityU Exhibition Gallery, 18/F Lau Ming Wai Academic Building. Admission is free.
Media enquiries:
Terry Lam (Tel: 3442 5228 or 6183 0947), Communications and Public Relations Office