Shanghai Textile Museum

We are delighted to announce that Shanghai Textile Museum has become our latest project partner on Bridging the Gaps!

Planned in July 2002 and with building initiated in November 2007, the Shanghai Textile Museum was opened officially on January 7, 2009. It is inhabits the former site of Shenxin Textile Factory No. 9 (formerly known as the Shanghai Machine Weaving Bureau ) which was founded in 1878. The local professional museum has a new 4,000-square-meter display area, and is fully funded by the Shangtex Holding (Group) Corporation.

It contains a vast collection of ancient, modern and contemporary artifacts that pertain to the rich history of the Textile Industry in Shanghai, the birthplace of the modern of textile industry in China.
Shanghai Textile Museum includes Preface Hall, The History Museum, Xie Ying Museum, The Science Museum and The Feature Museum.

With its vast scene of textile elements, Preface Hall, which is the smallest at 400 metres square meters, introduces the highlights of the history of textiles and the Shanghai textile industry's bright future.

The History Museum interprets the historical development of Shanghai's textile industry. Seperated into ancient, modern and contemporary historical facts; it highlights the textile industry’s historical status and role in the formation of Shanghai into the international metropolis that it is today.

Xie Ying Hall tells the stories of poignant individuals; sages, model workers, textile industrialists, experts and other textile elites in Shanghai throughout its rich history.

The Science Museum, houses the interpretation of the magical fiber footprint, colorful fabric world, complete process “chain” and extensive application space, embodies knowledge, interest, participation and interactions of the Textile Museum.

The Features Museum displays the work of the “Shanghai School” Beijing and Kunqu opera costumes.

In March 2021 our valued partner Leeds Industrial Museum held an online exhibition - Song of the Female Textile Workers which showed the six documentary films made for the project by East China University of Political Science and Law, each of which documented and shared with the people of the UK the stories of industrialisation and post-industrialisation in China and its involvement by - and subsequently effect on - working class women, further collaborative endeavours could be planned for the future in which these narratives, rooted in Yorkshire, might be similarly shared with the people of Shanghai.

The links in shared cultural heritage, both tangible and intangible, formed a key part of the research and narrative and it was essential both in the performance element, and the exhibition element, that the process was as collaborative, open, and accessible as possible.