Exhibition Design: "Xu Boxin: Publisher of the New Culture Movement"

A Publisher’s Spirit in Action

Xu Boxin: Publisher of the New Culture was a biographical exhibition presented by the Museum of Modern Chinese Press and Publishing in 2025. Through nearly 120 documents, manuscripts, photographs, artifacts, and objects related to Life Weekly, the Life Bookstore, and Xu Boxin’s own career, the exhibition retraced his path from publishing practice to public and social action. It also featured newly donated family archives, including the original handwritten record of Zou Taofen’s 1944 final testament.

Within the context of the museum, the exhibition was more than a memorial to one publishing figure. It became a narrative about modern publishing, bookstore culture, revolutionary communication, and intellectual public engagement. Through exhibition design, Xu Boxin was presented not only as a historical figure, but as an important entry point for understanding modern Chinese publishing culture.

Design Highlights

• Marks the 120th anniversary of Xu Boxin’s birth through an exhibition linking personal history with publishing history
• Presented in the temporary exhibition hall on the fifth floor of the Museum of Modern Chinese Press and Publishing
• Brings together nearly 120 exhibits, including documents, archives, manuscripts, and objects related to Life Weeklyand the Life Bookstore
• Organized into four sections, tracing a clear narrative from bookselling and publishing practice to social action
• Features the first public display of Zou Taofen’s original Record of Final Words and newly donated family archives, strengthening the exhibition’s documentary value
• Combines oral history, animated interpretation, and interactive installations to enhance accessibility and emotional engagement

Design Challenge

Biographical exhibitions often risk becoming simple life retrospectives, yet Xu Boxin’s significance lies not only in his personal story, but also in the publishing networks, bookstore culture, social commitments, and historical relationships that shaped his work. The core challenge of this project was therefore how to use one individual to tell a broader history of modern Chinese publishing without reducing the exhibition to commemoration alone.

Xu Boxin’s life crossed multiple fields, from Life Weekly and the Life Bookstore to revolutionary work and united front activity. At the same time, because the exhibition was presented in the Museum of Modern Chinese Press and Publishing, the design needed to move beyond anecdotal biography and address larger questions: why Xu mattered, how his publishing practice was embedded in modern Chinese society, and why bookselling itself forms part of public cultural history.

Design Strategy

The project is built on the idea of entering publishing history through a person, placing Xu Boxin’s life within the broader networks of modern Chinese bookselling, revolutionary communication, and public social action. Organized into four chapters, the exhibition moves from bookstore management and publishing practice to revolutionary publishing, united front work, and finally to a reflection on Xu’s personal character, guiding visitors from the familiar image of a bookseller into a fuller historical landscape.

Spatially, the design brings together documents, manuscripts, seals, eyeglasses, photo albums, and the original Record of Final Words to create a viewing experience that combines documentary depth with personal immediacy. Supported by oral history, animated interpretation, and interactive installations, the exhibition transforms relatively static publishing materials into a more layered and accessible narrative, allowing visitors to understand how a publisher’s life was shaped by—and in turn responded to—his time.

Project Value

The significance of this project lies in transforming a biographical exhibition on publishing into a more public-facing experience of cultural history. Xu Boxin is presented not simply as a familiar name within the publishing field, but as a key link between Life Weekly, the Life Bookstore, Zou Taofen, and the broader history of modern Chinese public culture. Through spatial narrative and the visualization of archival material, the exhibition shows publishing not merely as an industry, but as a cultural practice deeply connected to the circulation of ideas, social action, and historical change.

For museums focused on press and publishing history, the project also offers a representative curatorial approach: using a person as the entry point, but moving beyond biography; using documents as the foundation, but moving beyond archival display. In this way, it turns specialized publishing history into a clearer and more engaging form of public communication.