Durham University: Oriental Museum Visit

Back with another post on our day out at the Durham University Botanic Garden and Oriental Museum! Find my post on the Botanic Gardens here c:

Admittedly, I’m really not much of a museum-goer… I find them quite dry and stuffy at the best of times. However, I do have a deep appreciation of Asian culture and art, so I thought I’d give this museum a go since it sounds right up my street. The uni were also running a special admission deal for the Botanic Garden and the Oriental Museum on the same day~

Upon arriving the museum was nicely set out, organised in a tiered open space type layout- I know this has nothing to do with my research but it made it feel nice and airy in there (which made me much less anxious about spending hours getting lost in a blur of similar exhibits)!

There were a plethora of cultures on show at the museum including Korean, Egyptian, Middle-Eastern and Indian exhibits which I thoroughly enjoyed; however, for the purpose of this post I’ll be looking specifically at Chinese and Japanese items, since that’s what I’m basing my project on.

We visited the Japanese exhibit first- although it was small, there were some gorgeous examples of early ceramics and pottery, as well as some ceremonial prayer set-ups and symbolic items. My favourite exhibit was the collection of traditional Hina Matsuri dolls. The attendant told me these are only displayed for a short time around Doll’s Day or Girl’s Day (celebrated on the 3rd March each year)- more on this holiday here if you’re curious!

This is exactly what I was looking for to supplement the images of flora and fauna I’d taken in the gardens… I’m excited to work some of these visual styles into my concepts c:

I then wandered across to the Chinese exhibit floors- there was a much larger space for Chinese items and artwork, so I was able to gather tons of really useful reference imagery. The ceramics and pottery were standouts for me; peek a few photos from the exhibit below. My favourite item was the huge Qing Dynasty cloisonné floral vase!

At the far end of the Chinese floor was a huge paper replica of a traditional Chinese Dragon- with Chinese New Year being recently, it was nice to see an example of some more modern festive items. In particular I was happy to see this, since my current concepts for the Chinese risograph feature a traditional Chinese Dragon very prominently.

You may have noticed the quality of these photos is lacking in this post… truthfully I find museums to have horrendous lighting for photographing exhibits, so while most of my pics are useful and do the job, they’re not very nicely composed and a bit naff. There was also no flash photography, so I just had to make do with the conditions in there… and it was very dark >:c

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed my research visit to Durham. I’m so pleased I was able to source places to go for references for this project- I doubted I’d be able to find sufficient primary sources, so I was winning before I’d even begun~

I’m looking forward to working this new imagery into my concepts- I feel much more equipped to produce some lovely symbolic pieces of art that work well together and show my appreciation for the beauty of Asian culture ♥

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References

Collingwood, C. (2019). Durham University Oriental Museum: Floral Horse Bowl [photograph].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Durham University Oriental Museum: Hina Matsuri Doll Display [photograph].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Durham University Oriental Museum: Main Floor [photograph].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Durham University Oriental Museum: Qing Dynasty Cloisonné Vase [photograph].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Durham University Oriental Museum: Qing Dynasty Porcelain Bowl with Fish and Crane [photograph].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Durham University Oriental Museum: Qing Dynasty Red Dragon Plate [photograph].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Durham University Oriental Museum: Upper Floor Chinese Dragon and Lanterns [photograph].

Wikipedia (n.d.). Wiki – Hina Matsuri [online]/ Available at:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinamatsuri [Accessed 24 Feb 2019]