Speaker:WANG Xudong (王旭东)
Host:LU Yang (陆扬)
Theme:Watching over Humankind’s Dunhuang Together
Date:April 11 (Wednesday), 2018
Time:19:00 – 20:30
Location: Room B101, Second Gymnasium, Yenching Academy, Peking University
Language:English
Abstract:The ancient Silk Road developed and flourished over a period of one thousand years and facilitated interaction between eastern and western civilizations and peoples. The Road provided an impetus to the development of the Mogao Grottoes from 4thcentury AD to the 14thcentury AD creating an invaluable collection of Buddhist art. The Mogao Grottoes are extremely significant for the study of the history of fine arts in China and the world in general. The content of the site is rich and diversified and is of great value to the world transcending both time and space. The Mogao Grottoes were listed as a World Heritage site with the site meeting all six cultural criteria in 1987.
Since the establishment of the Dunhuang Academy in 1944, the site has undertaken a 71-year journey led by people such as Chang Shuhong, Duan Wenjie and Fan Jinshi, with generation after generation of Academy staff contributing to the site’s conservation, management and dissemination efforts. The Mogao Grottoes has been fortunate enough to gain the support and interest. This has particularly been the case since the 1980s when the Dunhuang Academy began undertaking broad-ranging collaboration within China and internationally. The Academy and GCI have collaborated in an extensive range of projects in the greatest number of fields. This collaboration has now been recognized as the model for international collaboration by the Chinese government.
Nowadays, the Dunhuang Academy has developed into a comprehensive academic research, site conservation and management organization.
Speaker:Dr. WANG Xudong, born in 1967 and graduated from Lanzhou University, is a Research Fellow of the Dunhuang Academy. He is currently the director of Dunhuang Academy, secretary of the Communist Party Committee of the Dunhuang Academy, director of National Research Center for Conservation of Ancient Wall-paintings and Earthen sites, guest professor and supervisor of PhD students in both Lanzhou University and Northwest University in China. He is selected in The Chinese National Key Talent Project, and the project of First-level Leading Talents of Gansu Province. He is also the president of the Commission on Preservation of Ancient Sites of International Society of Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering (2015-2019), chairman of the Conservation of Ancient Sites of Chinese Society for Rock Mechanics and Engineering Commission, vice Chairman of ICOMOS, China, chairman of the Conservation of Caves and Earthen Sites of China Association for Preservation Technology of Cultural Relics Commission.
