"The Art of Life: Multimedia Exhibition of Mawangdui" at Hunan Museum recently stood out among more than 11,000 entries from 66 countries and regions around the world, winning the iF Design Award 2025 for its groundbreaking digital theater presentation of cultural heritage.

Joining hands with Digital Library of China and Prof. Eugene Wang's team from the Harvard FAS CAMLab, the Hunan Museum initiated this exhibition after three years of elaborate planning and preparation. The project has integrated up-to-date academic research achievements, innovative inspirations in digital art, and cutting-edge developments in multimedia technologies, to present the exhibition.

The exhibition precisely reproduces the interior structure of the Mawangdui Han Tombs and the abundant relics that have been unearthed there, presenting an interactive experience of archaeological findings with spatial analysis for the visitors. Reflecting the "Yin and Yang—scattering and gathering" concepts in Chinese philosophy embodied in the four-layer coffin in Mawangdui Tomb No. 1, the exhibit reveals the life philosophy underlying tomb designs in the Han Dynasty. The exhibition creates China's first 15-meter-diameter immersive LED dome screen within a museum, giving visitors access to "step inside" the T-shaped silk painting to experience the vision of immortality—an imagined ascension "from earth to heaven" in the era of Lady Xinzhui over 2,000 years ago.

Opening on June 8, 2024, the exhibition has attracted over 530,000 visits to date.

As one of the globally influential design prizes, the iF Design Award is universally recognized for its precise and independent evaluation system. It is considered one of the top three global design awards, alongside the "Red Dot Design Award" in Germany and the "International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA)" in the United States. The iF Design Award evaluates entries following multiple criteria, including creativity, designs, functions and services, visual presentations, materials and crafts, and sustainability.

This article is from the Hunan Provincial Government www.enghunan.gov.cn.

Translator: Pang Yuehui

Chinese source: Hunan Daily