The 'Art Museum Night' that evening kicked off with a professional tour guide. Zhang Liying, a flower arrangement professor from the China Flower Art Culture and Education Foundation, will be the keynote speaker and lead the audience to visit the "Flower Language Coexistence: 2025 Shenzhen Rhododendron Theme Art Exhibition" currently on display. This exhibition is jointly launched by Guan Shanyue Art Museum and Shenzhen Park Management Center for the first time. Taking the Shenzhen Rhododendron as an artistic link, artists use various artistic techniques to capture the spiritual charm and vivid posture of Rhododendron, allowing seemingly ordinary petals and bracts to cluster together and form a fiery urban image. Professor Zhang explained in detail the six major vessels and four types of Chinese flower arrangement, using on-site exhibits as an example. Viewers can feel the inclusive and innovative urban temperament of Shenzhen in diverse works, as well as the vitality of this city that is rooted in tradition and constantly growing.
This event has designed an interlocking experience process, from theoretical guidance to practical operation, and the flower arrangement experience segment has pushed the event to a climax. The organizer prepared traditional flower baskets and materials for each participant, instantly bringing the atmosphere back to a literary gathering from thousands of years ago. Professor Zhang taught hand in hand, emphasizing that "Chinese flower arrangement emphasizes artistic conception and beautiful lines, rather than winning by the quantity of flower materials. Like creating Chinese paintings, flower arrangement requires leaving white space and pursuing asymmetrical beauty." The audience can choose chrysanthemum or camellia materials and follow the traditional layout of "heaven, earth, and man" for creation. Under the personal guidance of Professor Zhang, everyone learned techniques such as pruning and landscape setting, and experienced the ancient aesthetic of "thinning shadows horizontally and diagonally" with blank spaces. Chrysanthemums contain dew like gold, while mountain tea has a condensed fragrance like snow. As the city flower of Shenzhen, the resilience of Rhododendron and the "New Year's Cold" characteristics of chrysanthemums and mountain tea complement each other. That night, Hanfu fluttered and the shadows of the flowers swayed, and the three types of flowers and trees complemented each other in the exhibition hall, which is a poetic portrayal of the Chinese flower culture's saying "there are beautiful flowers in the New Year's Cold".
Moonlight, flowers and shadows shine together, fragrance and emotions linger around the beam! At the end of the event, the audience dressed in Hanfu and held handmade flower arrangements for a group photo. At this moment, they are like hairpin ladies who have traveled through time and space, complementing the floral works in the exhibition hall, leaving vivid annotations of traditional culture in the modern art museum, and also leaving a unique night memory of the art museum in the hearts of every audience member. Coming here, not only did I learn flower arrangement skills, but I also deeply experienced the charm of traditional culture. "One viewer said that this immersive cultural activity gave her a new understanding of Shenzhen's urban culture.
Free but not limited to quality, inclusive is not ordinary. The night at the art museum interprets the true meaning of cultural benefits for the people through practical actions. Chen Junyu, the director of Guanshan Yue Art Museum, expressed the hope that exhibitions and activities can awaken our common urban cultural identity and spiritual belonging. May we bloom warmly and tenaciously like azaleas in this never-ending city.
