Museums organise exchange programme for Beijing and Hong Kong students to cultivate future cultural leaders

During a four-week internship at the Hong Kong Palace Museum, Ryan Lou Cheuk-hang, a third-year student at the University of Hong Kong, realised that arts students like him are not necessarily at a disadvantage when it comes to pursuing promising careers.

Working in the museum’s learning and engagement team, the 21-year-old, majoring in Chinese history and art history, said the internship opened his eyes to the various roles within the museum industry, such as the publishing and business strategy teams.

“It has prompted me to reflect on the roles I could do to serve the city’s museums,” he said. “I realised that arts students can have a place in both cultural and commercial institutions in Hong Kong, which was a delightful surprise.”

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Lou is among 16 university students – eight each from Hong Kong and Beijing – who joined the two-month “Bi-city Youth Cultural Leadership Programme” that began in July. Students were given internship opportunities in the Hong Kong Palace Museum, M+, and four other museums under the Leisure and Cultural Services Department.

The final two weeks of the programme took place in Beijing, where the participants visited renowned sites such as the Palace Museum, 789 Art Zone, UCCA Centre for Contemporary Art, and Taikoo Li Sanlitun.

Divided into three groups, the students also presented their ideas under the theme of “museums for the future” to industry leaders, delving into how curated visiting routes, social media and outdoor art installations could enhance visitor experience.

Launched by the Hong Kong Palace Museum, this inaugural programme aims to stimulate conversations about cultural development in both cities and cultivate a new generation of talent for Hong Kong’s museum industry.

According to the report on manpower projection until 2027 by the Census and Statistics Department, the demand for manpower in Hong Kong’s culture and creative industries is likely to increase by 2,000 people per year, at an average annual rate of 0.9 per cent.

But the city’s museum industry is struggling to recruit talent. Currently, universities in Hong Kong do not offer undergraduate degrees in museum studies.

Louis Ng, the director of the Hong Kong Palace Museum, highlighted the programme’s goal of nurturing future cultural leaders for Hong Kong.

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Among the 16 participants, Beijing Normal University’s Gui Xianxian was the only student majoring in business administration instead of arts and culture. She believes commerce and culture can go together, for example, in addressing museums’ challenge of limited funding.

“My future goal is to make more beautiful museums known to the world in a sustainable and profitable way,” said the 20-year-old, who worked as an intern managing social media at the Hong Kong Science Museum.

When asked about her future, Gui shared her vision: “As young people of our generation, especially after the pandemic, our aspirations may extend beyond solely focusing on Hong Kong or Beijing. We strive to be global citizens who can bridge the gap between both cities and contribute to creating a brighter future for museums.”

Hu Lei, 19, a Year Two history student, also from Beijing Normal University, was inspired to work in Hong Kong after the programme.

“I can see that Hong Kong has the space for people like me,” said the 21-year-old, who was an intern at the Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defence.

What fuelled his passion for the city was strolling around its neighbourhoods – exploring bookshops in Mong Kok and public housing estates in Sham Shui Po.

Hu was impressed by how local businesses embodied the city’s spirit. “Hong Kong citizens would actively seek out the city’s culture and learn about it,” he said.

Zhang Chaoyang, a student majoring in arts management at Communication University of China, believed that Hong Kong had a global vision and its innovative developments were “diverse” and “accepting”.

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Sponsored by Swire Properties, each student received HK$8,000 to support their visit to both cities. The company’s chief executive, Tim Blackburn, said they would continue to support the student programme in 2024.

Marco Shek Ka-chun, the executive director of Ednovators, the team responsible for designing the exchange programme, said it aimed to cultivate students’ cultural awareness.

“We want them to learn about how they can make museums relevant to different people,” he said.

Lou Wei, the Palace Museum’s executive deputy director, spoke of the programme’s vision to make Chinese culture “go global” by collaborating with its counterpart in Hong Kong and fostering creativity in both cities.