On Wednesday, 12 April, we visited the National Base for International Cultural Trade in Shunyi District, northeast of Beijing Municipality.
Restoring fabric cultural relics at Beijing Leshi Cultural Relics Restoration Centre. Photo: SLCT
Within the Base is the Beijing Leshi Cultural Relics Restoration Centre, China’s largest hospital, to restore cultural relics of national importance. Over 50 restoration experts and consultants come from renowned institutions like the National Palace Museum and National Museum. They utilise traditional master-apprentice teaching aided by intelligent technology to restore diverse relic types in various media, from paper to metal.
Restoring cultural relics at Beijing Leshi Cultural Relics Restoration Centre. Photo: Ronda Luke
The Restoration Centre is exploring promoting Chinese cultural relics restoration skills to overseas markets, including the Caribbean. This was very welcome news, as Grenada’s artefacts, especially paper, quickly succumb to the heat, moisture, and hearty cockroach and termite appetites.
In Grenada, 4 sets of artefacts need urgent attention: (i) the boxes of Grenada papers, last seen by me pre-Covid-19 in dreadful condition at Fort George; (ii) any documents and items at Government House that survived Hurricane Ivan; (iii) the 18 to mid-19th Century volumes and ledgers at the Supreme Court Registry, and (iv) the documents that comprise our National Archives languishing in the shell of the Sheila M Buckmire Memorial Public Library, to give the building its formal name.
I look forward to these skills being brought to Grenada and by Grenadians benefitting from scholarships.
Studio at Beijing Leshi Cultural Relics Restoration Centre. Photo: SLCT