4 December 2017
(Symposium in progress)
(President of STA Huang Changyong making a keynote presentation)
(Group photo of symposium participants)
The 8th Shanghai Cultural Development Symposium was held at the Shanghai Theatre Academy (STA) on 28 November 2017. The symposium was sponsored by the Shanghai Development and Reform Research Institute and jointly organized by the Cultural Development Studies Centre of the Shanghai Development and Reform Research Institute and the World Cities Cultural Collaborative Innovation Centre. The symposium, which had "New Era: Cultural Confidence and Shanghai's Action" as the theme and had "cultural inheritance, cultural transmission, cultural innovation" as the keywords, discussed the propositions of carrying forward the urban cultural gene of Shanghai in the background of the new era, international influence of Chinese culture and so on.
Experts and scholars from the Shanghai Theatre Academy, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, Fudan University and Tongji University and business representatives from companies such as Broad Messe International participated in the symposium and made excellent presentations. The keynote speakers included Zhao Huaiyuan, Party Secretary and Deputy Director of Shanghai Development and Reform Research Institute, Huang Changyong, President of Shanghai Theatre Academy, He Jianhua, Vice President of Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, Liu Deliang, Founder of Xinyuan Think Tank, Wang Guowei, Director of Media Industry Studies Institute, Tongji University, and Rong Yueming, Direcrtor of Literature Studies Institute, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.
Huang Changyong, President of Shanghai Theatre Academy, gave a presentation entitled “The New Vision for Shanghai’s Cultural Development in the New Era”. In the presentation, he pointed out that since we entered the new era, the rapid development of China’s urbanization process has been unprecedented in the history of the world, and the unprecedented achievements have also been made in the development of urban culture. But, generally speaking, the unbalanced and inadequate development is still an important characteristic in the current stage. The unbalanced and inadequate cultural development has the characteristic of dual inadequacy in the construction of cultural space and cultural content. Cultural infrastructure still needs to be fully developed; cultural innovation is inadequate and the development level in this regard needs to be improved; the structure of cultural governance and modernization of governance competence still lack behind; the total volume of cultural trade is inadequate and is at the low end of the value chain. Shanghai’s cultural development should emphasize on the development of performing arts industry, film and television industry, design and fashion industry, art industry, online gaming industry. Ultimately, there are two key elements to grasp in these five aspects, i.e. grasping the art education, in particular, the higher education in art in one hand, and grasping the system and mechanism in the other hand. These aspects need to be comprehensively planned and demonstrated, focusing on the innovation of system and mechanism and the creation of environment and atmosphere, with which Shanghai will develop itself into an international cultural metropolis as a matter of course.
