Here Lives Our Culture

Here Lives Our Culture explores cultural materials drawn from more than 20,000 items in the University of Melbourne’s Rare East Asian Collection. To reflect the experience of a traditional Chinese library, the exhibition is organised around the four-category system used in ancient China: Classics, History, Masters, and Literature. China has an extensive history of collecting and classifying books, and libraries have long sat at the heart of its cultural knowledge production. Inspired by the Analects of Confucius and encompassing materials from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, Here Lives Our Culture invites you to learn, share and connect through our collections at the Baillieu Library.

The exhibition features text in both English and Chinese, with QR codes in both languages directing you to an extensive set of  online resources, complementing the physical display.

The exhibition has been curated by Xiaoju Liu, Curator, Rare East Asian Collection and Kerrianne Stone, former Curator, Prints and continues to March 2024.