Looted Legacy: Analysis of Media Representation of Old Summer Palace
Yafei Zhang
CIMS: Collecting Media
Instructor: Shannon Mattern
​Motivation and Purpose
Property, looting, war history, international property law, cultural heritage, and media are all topics I study. This project examines the Old Summer Palace in Yuanmingyuan, China, to critically examine technology and media coverage, cultural heritage and war, plundering history, and museum practice. The exhibition traces the history from colonial plunder to modern-day restitution and technological reconstruction to develop a nuanced understanding of how media coverage and museum representation of Yuanming Yuan can help us understand the past and explore creativity for future museum education about history memory.
I want to discuss both disciplinary issues, one for cultural heritage, and how technology in future reconstruction efforts could carry not only memory and national history but also cultural meaning.
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The following questions prompted me to examine media-spaced representation: How and why do we study cultural heritage through the media? Is it possible to conduct heritage and history research using a museum database? How is 3D modeling a new media form for transcending ideas? Does it have limits?
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I divided the website in 4 parts, which represent past colonial looted history and the provenance of those museum artifacts, the present restitution and reconstruction effort for safeguarding and rehabilitation , the future thought and critical discussion question in a global sphere.