2022 Silk Road Week

Following a preliminary press conference at the China National Silk Museum, the Silk Road Week 2022 will take place from 8 to 14 July 2022. This weeklong initiative was first established by the Chinese cultural heritage community to mark and celebrate the anniversary of the nomination of the Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang’an-Tianshan Corridor as a UNESCO World Heritage site on June 2014. Two previous editions of Silk Road Week, focusing on the themes of ‘The Silk Roads: Mutual Learning for Future Collaboration’ and ‘Cultural Diversity and Sustainable Development’ took place in Hangzhou in 2020 and 2021 respectively.

The theme for the third edition of Silk Road Week will be ‘National Integration and Common Prosperity’. The programme of events taking place in Hangzhou and beyond include themed exhibitions, themed courses, academic seminars, and lectures. This year, Qinghai Province is invited as the guest province and Uzbekistan, the guest country.

The opening ceremony of 2022 Silk Road Week will be held at the China National Silk Museum on 8 July and will include the release of the themed video for 2022 Silk Road Week, the launch of the Annual Report of Cultural Heritage on the Silk Roads 2021, and the launch of the exhibition ‘Silk and the Silk Roads: from Hangzhou to Samarkand’ in collaboration with the Samarkand State Museum-Reserve of Uzbekistan.

The opening ceremony will also include the release of the book ‘The Thematic Collection of Cultural Exchanges along the Silk Roads: Textiles and Clothing’ a co-publication between UNESCO and the China National Silk Museum as well as the opening of the exhibition ‘Qinghai Path: The Silk Roads in the 6th – 8th Centuries’ in Hangzhou. There will also be a Silk Road Online Museum (SROM) night including an online curating competition award ceremony, Qinghai local song and dance performance, and an Uzbek costume show. Further details about the online curating competition can be found here. 

The full programme of events will run until July 14 and will include the exhibitions:

• ‘Gorgeous Costumes: Restoration and Conservation of Textiles’, China National Silk Museum;
• ‘Observe and Identify: Thematic Exhibition of Cultural Relics Protection and Archaeological Science Microscope Photograph’, China National Silk Museum;
• ‘Synchronicity: Restoration of Silk Road Costumes in the 6th – 8th Centuries’, China National Silk Museum;
• ‘Beautiful Uzbekistan: Selected Works Exhibition of the Youth Eyes on the Silk Roads Photo Contest’, UNESCO and China National Silk Museum;
• ‘Along the Road: Silk Road Week Poster Relay Exhibition’, Hangzhou Tower;
• ‘Forty Years of Archaeology at the Reshui Tombs in Dulan Exhibition’, Dulan Museum in Qinghai;
• ‘Qinghai Silk Road Academic Forum’, China National Silk Museum, 9-10 July;
• ‘Qinghai Silk Road Curator’s Seminar’, Qinghai Provincial Museum, 14-15 July; and the
• Closing Ceremony to be held at the Qinghai Provincial Museum on 14 July.