The ERC project Regionalizing Infrastructures in Chinese History and the KU Leuven Early Modern History Research Group organized a presentation and discussion with Dr. Lianyu Jin (Nanjing City Wall Protection and Management Center). The talk, titled Nanjing City Wall: A Case Study on Digital Humanities and Community Involvement in Heritage Protection, took place on Monday, August 28, in LETT 01.52 (Jos Creten) at KU Leuven, at 2 PM.
About the talk: Nanjing city wall surrounds the city's core urban area, forming its backbone and intimately connecting with the community. In order to create a closer bond between the city wall and the public, the Nanjing City Wall Protection and Management Center launched two projects:
1. The project Oral History Collection of the Nanjing City Wall adopts a new model for collecting, storing, and publishing individual memories of the city wall. This project also includes courses about repairing and maintaining the wall, preserving cultural heritage, working with personal memories, etc.
2. The public campaign titled Bring Every Brick Home to Protect Nanjing City Wall was launched in 2016. The campaign actively engages the community in the preservation of Nanjing's city wall, which has been damaged by various human activities. The campaign encouraged the community to provide information about city wall bricks and donate them to the Center, where they were used for maintenance of the wall.
The Center is also engaged in digital documentation of the city wall: nearly every brick has an inscription, with a location, time, names of senior officials, and even the information on potters and brick craftsmen can be found on the bricks. The Center uses a 3D scanner to collect the inscriptions on the bricks and records the locations through GIS.
About Dr. Lianyu Jin: Lianyu Jin is an associate investigator at Nanjing City Wall Protection and Management Center. She obtained her Ph.D. degree in history from the Department of Archaeology and Museology, Peking University in 2016. Her research interests include archaeology of the Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasties, the archaeology of ancient city sites, the production, supply, and management system for infrastructure material, and public participation and education practices. Dr. Jin is currently engaged in Nanjing Time Machine of the Ming dynasty project, which aims to present digital documentation of the imperial palace and the inner city of Nanjing during the Ming dynasty (Nanjing city wall). The project establishes a preliminary monitoring method of digital protection for Nanjing city wall, as well as an online platform to exhibit the cultural heritage of Nanjing during the Ming dynasty. She has published papers on archaeological discoveries and research on brick kilns, architecture classes of central official governments, and the defense function of ancient city walls in the Ming dynasty. Dr. Jin also authored a book titled The city of Memory: Oral History of Nanjing City Wall. As a curator, she has also designed exhibitions on the Nanjing city wall and Yongle cultural heritage in the Ming dynasty.
The talk will took place online and in person.