“Another year is gone with the sound of firecrackers, and the spring breeze brings warmth to Tu Su.” The Year of the Snake has arrived as scheduled. This year is also the first year that the Chinese Spring Festival has been included in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity of UNESCO. To celebrate the “intangible cultural heritage version of the Spring Festival”, Shanghai’s museums have prepared a rich “cultural feast” to bring newer and better experiences and surprises to the audience. “Visiting museums” has become an ideal choice for a leisure holiday.

At 9:00 a.m. on the first day of the Lunar New Year, the leaders of the Shanghai Museum, wearing festive Chinese red scarves, stood at the entrance of the People's Square to welcome the first batch of visitors in the Year of the Snake. The first 100 visitors received cultural and creative gifts such as "Blue Lotus Flower Pattern Sachets" from the leaders of the Shanghai Museum, and congratulated each other: "Happy New Year!" This is also a reserved program of the Shanghai Museum on the first day of the Lunar New Year, sending New Year wishes and joy to the visitors.

Shanghai Museum (People's Square Museum) sends blessings to the first batch of visitors in the Year of the Snake at the entrance

The Shanghai Museum is open for 8 days during the Spring Festival and has prepared a series of rich and diverse "cultural feasts". In addition to the colorful permanent exhibitions, the People's Square Museum is exhibiting four special exhibitions: "Top of the Pyramids: Ancient Egyptian Civilization Exhibition", "Spiritual Shadows: Shanghai Museum's Spring Festival Exhibition in the Year of the Snake", "East and West in the World: China and the World in the Eyes of Marco Polo", and "Golden Brilliance: Zhang Zongxian's Donated Cloisonné Enamel Exhibition"; the East Museum is exhibiting the newly opened "Impression Party: POLA Art Museum Collection Impressionist Art Exhibition" and "Garden Full of Flowers: The Artistic Magic of Cartier".

Visitors waiting to enter the museum

The zodiac culture is an important element of the Spring Festival culture, and the snake is a symbol of agility, wisdom, and vitality, and it is one of the objects of concern to the ancients. Not long after the museum opened in the morning, the "Spirit Shadow: Shanghai Museum's Spring Festival Exhibition in the Year of the Snake" was crowded with people, vying to take pictures of "snake" cultural relics and experience the snake spirit culture. This exhibition selects 13 pieces (sets) of collections and loaned cultural relics to lead the audience to witness the continuity and changes of the snake spirit legend in Chinese civilization. The exhibition hall of "Top of the Pyramid: Ancient Egyptian Civilization Exhibition" is crowded with people. The exhibition has been on display for more than 6 months, and the exhibition period is about to be halfway through, but the popularity is as always. Many viewers came to Shanghai from other places just to check in at the "Ancient Egypt Exhibition".

The People's Square of the Shanghai Museum has also designed an interactive activity called "Celebrating the New Year in the Museum". Participating audiences are given a "blessing" task card. According to the instructions on the blessing card, they can find the corresponding exhibits in the collection and take photos as evidence to get a Spring Festival blessing bag. The cultural relics to be found are all related to the Year of the Snake or auspicious cultural relics, such as the "red wood gold lacquer inlaid ivory throne" and "cloisonné enamel objects" in the Ming and Qing furniture museum, which are full of the meanings of "noble status" and "wealth blessing".

"Celebrating the New Year in the Museum" interactive activity

As a new cultural landmark in Shanghai, the Shanghai Museum East Building has attracted visitors from local citizens and tourists. At 10 a.m., at the entrance of the Shanghai Museum East Building, the Shanghai Museum also presented Shanghai Museum cultural and creative products to the first 100 visitors who arrived at the East Building. Junior student Qiu and her companions were waiting excitedly to enter the museum. She said that she was a junior and came to Shanghai with her classmates during the winter vacation, and specially came to check in at the "Impression Party: Impressionist Art Exhibition from the POLA Art Museum" and "Garden Full of Flowers: The Artistic Magic of Cartier". "In the past, the Shanghai Museum left me with the impression of a more traditional and solemn art palace. Now its exhibitions are very diverse, which is in line with the appreciation preferences of young people. The architecture of the Shanghai Museum East Building is also simple, grand and modern."

"The Garden of Flowers: The Artistic Magic of Cartier" brings together more than 300 art treasures, including more than 200 treasures from the Cartier collection and nearly 100 archival documents. The scene design is creative, technological and fashionable, and is designed by the artificial intelligence model cAI™ (pronounced AI Cai) designed by Cai Guoqiang's team. The exhibition will close on February 17, and audiences who love fashion and design can seize the last opportunity to visit the exhibition; "Impression Party: Impressionist Art Exhibition from the POLA Art Museum" opened before the festival, greatly enriching the festival cultural life of citizens and audiences. While presenting the classics of Impressionist art, the exhibition also made some innovations in the exhibition concept, making the exhibition both academic and interesting, attracting more young people to enter the museum.

"Celebrating the New Year in the Museum" New Year Special Event Site

According to the museum, from the first to the third day of the Chinese New Year (January 29-31), the Shanghai Museum will launch the "Celebrate the New Year in the Museum" special New Year activities in the two major buildings of the People's Square Museum and the East Museum, so that people can experience the strong festive atmosphere together, such as the "Spiritual Snake Brings Good Luck" Collotype Painting and Calligraphy Reproduction Skills Intangible Cultural Heritage New Year Activities, and the Ancient Civilization Exploration Palace "Spring Festival·Handicraft Workshop" activities. In conjunction with the Spring Festival Exhibition of the Year of the Snake, the Shanghai Museum also launched the mini-game "Greedy Snake Museum Journey". In the game, you can follow the greedy little snake transformed by different cultural relics, travel through time and space, and explore the mysteries of the thousand-year-old snake culture.

Snake Museum Journey

"We hope that you who love visiting museums will choose Shanghai History Museum as your first stop in the new year and meet us at the event." At 9 a.m. on the first day of the new year, at the entrance of the East Building of Shanghai History Museum in People's Park, Director Zhou Qunhua of Shanghai History Museum gave out New Year's lucky bags and blessings to the first 10 groups of lucky visitors who entered the museum in the new year. The director also took photos with the lucky visitors to record this rare holiday memory.

Shanghai History Museum

The museum is currently showing special exhibitions such as "Awakening: V MUSE Collection Jewelry Art Exhibition" and "Elves of Heaven and Earth Brilliant Jianghan - Wuhan Museum Collection Jade Exhibition", bringing visitors a "cultural feast" for the New Year. From the first to the fifth day of the New Year, the Shanghai Museum of History also presented a special New Year event: all visitors sent a special exhibition viewing grid of "Awakening: V MUSE Collection Jewelry Art Exhibition" on WeChat Moments or Xiaohongshu, and they would receive a special exhibition ticket.

"Awakening: V MUSE Collection Jewelry Art Exhibition" exhibition site

From the first to the fifth day of the Chinese New Year, the Shanghai Museum of History launched activities full of traditional Chinese New Year flavor and Shanghai flavor, from "Snake Dance New Year - Calligraphy Sends Blessings", "Interlaced Shadows of Lanterns: Cultural Relics Lantern Riddles" to "Si Si Ru Yi" Spring Festival woodblock New Year picture printing, every day is wonderful.

The World Expo Museum on the bank of the Huangpu River also extended an invitation to visitors to visit the museum during the Spring Festival, "Eight-day holiday, no two days are the same!" Just recently, MYAKU-MYAKU, the mascot of Japan's 2025 Osaka World Expo, also came to the World Expo Museum to check in.

MYAKU-MYAKU, the mascot of the 2025 Osaka World Expo, also visited the World Expo Museum

The exhibition hall of the special exhibition "Age of Beauty: William Morris and the British Arts and Crafts Movement", which is known as the ceiling of free exhibitions in Shanghai, was crowded with people. The exhibition displayed many masterpieces of William Morris, a pioneer of modern British design, and his "circle of friends", which not only attracted domestic visitors to visit the exhibition, but also occasionally encountered some foreign visitors immersed in the exhibition.

Exhibition site of "Beauty for Life: William Morris and the British Arts and Crafts Movement"

The "Fantasy Ukiyo-e Light and Shadow Art Exhibition" leads the audience into an immersive light and shadow fantasy that draws on classic Chinese and foreign art.

Fantasy Ukiyo-e Light and Shadow Art Exhibition

Check-in spots for the Year of the Snake

The museum has also launched a rich and diverse collection of Spring Festival activities, including prints for the Year of the Snake, New Year's paper-cuts for the Year of the Snake, "A Time for Beauty" silk screen prints, and the World Expo Flying Exploration Tour.