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‘So much Chinese culture came from the outside’: nomads, the Silk Road and developments in ancient art in northern China
- Images of Mongolian steppes, forest and desert transport visitors to a Hong Kong exhibition to the region for an exploration of the art of ancient nomads
- Artefacts on display show the gradual refinement of nomadic art through cultural influences that flowed along the Silk Road from Europe
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Visitors to “Hunters, Warriors, Spirits: Nomadic Art of North China” are greeted by stunning images of a verdant plain, a snowy white forest and an arid desert. All were captured by Hong Kong-based photographer Marc Progin during visits to the Mongolian steppes.
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Hing Chao, the curator of the exhibition and executive chairman of family-owned shipping group Wah Kwong Transport Holdings, says Progin’s contemporary photographs transport viewers to the region’s unique landscapes.
“This exhibition is really conceived as a journey,” he adds.
Chao, who is known for his passion for promoting traditional culture and heritage in Hong Kong and China, first thought of staging an exhibition on the culture of nomadic hunters in 2007.
The best known of the nomads who roamed what is today northern China were the Mongols. From his base on the steppes, Genghis Khan had created by 1206 the largest land empire ever built. But the exhibition introduces other indigenous groups.
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Referred to in Chinese annals by the umbrella term hu, these groups include the Xiongnu, nomads who dominated the steppes of modern-day Mongolia and Manchuria from the 3rd century BCE to the 1st century AD; the Xianbei and Rouran tribes; and the last surviving hunters of China’s northern forests, the Orochen.
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