On November 8th, the Opening Ceremony of the 2021 China Today Arts Week and the Premiere of Youth in Light and Shadow Elected Chinese Short Films Panorama was held in Beijing. The organizers were China Federation of Literary and Art Circles and China Foreign Languages Publishing Administration while the co-organizers were China Today magazine, China Film Association, China Artists Association, China Photographers Association, China Calligraphers Association and China Television Artist Association.
Zhang Yanbin, member of the leading party group of China Federation of Literary and Art Circle and secretary of the secretariat; Gao Anming, deputy director and editor in chief of the China Foreign Lanages Publishing Administration; Komaki Kurihara, vice chairman of Japan-China Cultural Communication Association; chairman of the Spanish Catedra China and executive director of IFACCA delivered speeches. Attendees of the opening ceremony included Leonardo Alfonso Kam Binns, Panamanian ambassador to China, and Kim Jin Gon, Korean envoy to China and president of Korean Cultural Center in China, envoys of Russia, Cambodia, Cuba and Ukraine, Hu Baomin, president of China Today magazine, as well as representatives and reporters.
Zhang Yanbin, member of the leading party group of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles and secretary of the secretariat, said in his speech that against the background of the pandemic, people all over the world needed art to dispel the shadow, to warm people’s hearts, to enhance spiritual strength and to improve faith. Artists all over the world needed to be more solidified to offer spiritual strength with strong, ethical and warm artwork. Countries belonged to a interconnected community of a shared fate, so only by improving communication and mutual-learning could we gather more powerful strength to inject driving forces for the development and progress for the world civilization.
Gao Anming, deputy director and editor in chief of China Foreign Languages Publishing Administration said that the institute he had been working in covered six main fields, including high-end international promotion, international publication, international media promotion, people-to-people exchanges between China and the international society, research and consultation of the international community and industrial coordination. China Foreign Languages Publishing Administration devoted to push forward communication between civilizations of China and of the world and improve mutual-understanding. He brought up three “insist” regarding cultural communication, including, insist mutual-respect, opening-up and inclusiveness and build a bridge for art and literature of various kinds to promote art and literature exchanges between China and the international community.
Komaki Kurihara said that a lofty dream was shared by Japan-China Cultural Communication Association, China Federation of Literary and Art Circles and China Foreign Languages Publishing Administration. She believed that the art week would be a beautiful opportunity to bring light to the world. The chairman of the Spanish Catedra China expected that the art week would be held in Spanish after the pandemic to show China’s development achievement, art and culture. The executive director of IFACCA said that the art week represented China’s abundant and colorful cultural innovation, so visitors could experience profound Chinese culture. He was also eager to reunite offline and experience those extraordinary events by themselves.
On the Premiere of Youth in Light and Shadow Elected Chinese Short Films Panorama, guests watched a short movie named “Spring Afterwards” which was received well.
China Today Arts Week was an exchange event held every year outside of China to comprehensively show China’s contemporary culture and art. The goal was to enable people of the international community to have a better understanding of China’s contemporary art and to enhance the friendship between artists from home and abroad. Since this event started in 2004, China Today Arts Week had been held 16 times in 21 countries and regions in the five continents.
2021 China Today Arts Week was organized by China Federation of Literary and Art Circles and China Foreign Languages Publishing Administration, including Premiere of Youth in Light and Shadow Elected Chinese Short Films Panorama, "The Road of Inheritance" Art Exhibition on Decorative Patterns of Chinese Porcelain from the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), the China-Japan Friendship Original-Poem Calligraphy Exchange Exhibition, Field of Hope: Photo Exhibition on Changes of Chinese People's Livelihoods, “Song on the Tianshan Mountain” China Xinjiang Photo Exhibition, Into the New Era: Fine Art and Photo Exhibition and Urban Charm Promotional Videos of China's Cites. The art week used a cloud exhibition hall which could be visited by audience from home and abroad. Supporting institutes included Japan-China Cultural Communication Association, Spanish Catedra China and IFACCA.