Hong Kong Palace Museum | HKPM Talk Series | Conservation Case Studies from The Palace Museum (Part 5)

Yang Xiaochen

Associate Research Fellow and Deputy Section Chief
Department of Conservation
The Palace Museum

Yang Xiaochen holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland. As a disciple of Mr Wang Jin, a national-level inheritor of intangible cultural heritage, he has been engaged in the restoration of mechanical cultural relics such as ancient clocks at the Palace Museum’s Department of Conservation for nearly ten years. He has completed the restoration of dozens of cultural relics and published more than 20 professional papers, obtaining the title of Research Fellow.

Cui Zheng

Associate Research Fellow and Deputy Section Chief
Department of Conservation
The Palace Museum

Cui Zheng holds a Master’s degree and is an Associate Research Fellow. She joined the Textile Collections Conservation Group of the Palace Museum in 2014, where she specialises in the conservation, restoration, and research of textile collections. Currently, she oversees the operations of her section.

Cui Zheng has been involved in several significant projects of the National Key Research and Development Programme, including a project titled “In Situ Assessment Methods for Typical Diseases and Deterioration Degrees of Valuable Organic Cultural Relics in Museums”. Additionally, she has contributed to a sub-project titled “Research on Value Recognition and Key Technologies of Qing Dynasty Inherited Textile Artefacts”. Furthermore, Cui Zheng leads the research project “Conservation, Restoration and Research of Original Textile Artefacts in the Qing'an Hall of the Palace Museum” under the Laboratory for the Protection and Transmission of Palace Museum Cultural Heritage, as well as the compilation of the Palace Museum standard “Disease classification and diagram of the Palace Museum textile collections” and “The Production of Cloth Cover for Calligraphy and Painting Hanging Scrolls”.

Wang Xu

Associate Research Fellow
Department of Conservation
The Palace Museum

Wang Xu, an Associate Research Fellow in the Department of Conservation at the Palace Museum. During his 20 years of dedication to the conservation, restoration and research of textile artefacts in the museum's collection, he has completed the conservation, restoration and replication of over 100 artefacts for exhibitions both within and outside of the museum. These include carpets, cushions, curtains, drapes, partition screens, hanging panels, thangkas, and court lantern tassels from the palace’s original displays; imperial military artefacts such as imperial saddles and armours used during the travels of emperors and empresses; as well as numerous large-scale textile relics such as canopies, fans and banners used as imperial processional paraphernalia. She has also handled imperial apparel items, including pouches, fans, garments, footwear and hats.

She also led the research project on the conservation and restoration of cushions, seat mats, and handrests in the Hall of Mental Cultivation at the Palace Museum. Her research on the conservation and restoration of the textile components of the sandalwood Guanyin Bodhisattva in the Palace Museum’s collection was selected as one of the Top 10 National Cultural Heritage Restoration Cases in 2024.

Zhao Shoujiang

Associate Research Fellow
Department of Conservation Science
The Palace Museum

Zhao Shoujiang, Associate Research Fellow and member of Jiusan Society, graduated from the Institute of Engineering Mechanics, China Earthquake Administration. His research focuses on seismic response analysis, isolation technologies, and engineering vibration monitoring. He has presided over three research projects both within and outside the institute, participated in one, published over ten papers, and holds nine patents. Recently, his focuses his research on the seismic vulnerability of movable cultural relics using nonlinear dynamic analysis, and has successfully developed several practical isolation devices.

Qu Yajie

Associate Research Fellow
Department of Conservation Science
The Palace Museum

Qu Yajie has been working in the Department of Conservation Science at the Palace Museum since 2017, and is a Fellow. She is also a doctoral candidate in the Department of Cultural Heritage and Museology at Fudan University. Her research primarily focuses on the scientific analysis and ageing study of various types of paper cultural relics, as well as the restoration techniques of traditional Chinese handmade paper and processed paper. She has conducted scientific studies on the materials and processing techniques of processed papers such as sutra papers of Tang dynasty, embossed paper of Song dynasty, court powder-wax papers of Qing dynasty, as well as papers used for calligraphy, painting, and ancient books.