Mikhail Piotrovsky participated in the Global Museum Directors Forum

On 11 July 2022, the second Global Museum Directors Forum took place in Beijing, organized by the National Museum of China. The main theme for this year’s Forum was “Challenge and Persistence: Museum’s Responsibilities of the Times”.

The event brought together the heads of scores of museums from several dozen countries. Russia was represented by the State Hermitage, the State Historical Museum and the Museum of the East.

The participants discussed such topics as museums as a means for a dialogue of civilizations, museums equipped with new technologies, the look of the museum building and its equipment, as well as questions of international research and cultural collaboration between museums, exchanges of exhibitions and much else.

Mikhail Piotrovsky, General Director of the State Hermitage, gave a talk at a plenary session on “Peter the Great and a Dialogue of Cultures” in which he spoke about the programme for the celebration of the 350th anniversary of the Emperor’s birth. In particular, he analysed the mechanism by which Peter I’s Russia came to perceive Chinese culture as a model and source of luxury. In the Hermitage collection, works of Chinese art occupy a special place among the items associated with Peter the Great. The exhibition “Exotic and Lavish China. Knowledge of the Orient” in the Winter Palace, devoted to Chinese luxury in the life of the Russian Emperor, was one of the first to be held as part of the Year of Peter the Great at the Hermitage.