Chinese, Japanese artists hold Dongba culture, art exhibition in Gifu

Chinese and Japanese artists presented a joint exhibition on Dongba culture in Gifu, Japan, this month, displaying more than 100 works that highlight the heritage of the Naxi people from southwest China's Yunnan province.

The exhibition, called "Echoes of Heaven and Earth: Sino-Japanese Dongba Culture and Art Joint Exhibition," took place at Gifu Media Cosmos and was organized by Beijing's Association of Dongba Culture and Arts (ADCA) and the Gifu Seifu Suibokuga Association.

The exhibition showcased diverse works, including Dongba paintings, Naxi folk photography, installations, academic publications, and digital versions of ancient Dongba manuscripts, all produced in collaboration with international museums.

A highlight was paintings by Dongba masters on traditional handmade paper from the ADCA collection. The colorful works blended simple designs with mythological themes, bridging modern creativity and ancient tradition.

During the opening ceremony on Sept. 9, ADCA President Zhang Xu Tayoulamu donated a handwritten scripture, "The Tale of the White Bat's Quest for the Scriptures," created by 82-year-old Dongba master Xi Shanghong of Shangri-La, to the Gifu City Chuo Library. Gifu Mayor Shibahashi Masanao accepted the gift in person, while Library Director Nagao Katsuhiro received another work, "The Magical Naxi Dongba Script" by scholar Lan Wei.

Mayor Shibahashi wrote on social media that he was "honored to receive a Dongba book" at the exhibition opening. He noted that the Dongba script, preserved by the Naxi people of Lijiang in Yunnan, is "the world's only surviving pictographic writing system."

Zhang called the scripture "a miracle of human civilization" and "a poetic myth inscribed in the world's only living pictographic script." She noted that UNESCO added Dongba manuscripts to its Memory of the World Register in 2003 and referenced a 1981 Tokyo University of Foreign Studies study on the same text by Chinese scholar Fu Maoji.

The Gifu Seifu Suibokuga Association contributed works reflecting members' visits to Lijiang, a sister city of Takayama city. Former Gifu Councilor Ichikawa Naoko recalled her 2009 trip: "We were struck by the beauty of Lijiang's ancient town, marked by the UNESCO World Heritage plaque. Guided by President Zhang Xu Tayoulamu, we visited the Lijiang Dongba Culture Museum and Lijiang Dongba Culture Research Institute, where we first encountered the Dongba script."

ADCA members presented paintings inspired by Dongba symbols as well as photographs documenting rituals, traditional dances, daily life and landscapes. A standout piece was "The Roc Bears All: Nine Chapters of Dongba" by 16-year-old Long Kaiyuan, whose work explored coexistence between humans and nature and showed how young people interpret traditional culture.

The exhibition also highlighted the ADCA's cooperation with institutions in France, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Spain and the United States on the digitization of Dongba manuscripts.

The show also featured the "Revitalization of Naxi Dongba Script" project, which used a digitized manuscript from Leiden University to help revive an ancestral ritual that had not been practiced for 70 years in a Naxi village. The project was a collaboration between the ADCA and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Exhibition organizer Liu Yuetong, who lectures at the Japanese association and directs the ADCA, said the goal was to bring students and members together "to present their Dongba-themed creations, as a contribution to the preservation and transmission of Naxi Dongba culture."

Gifu Seifu Suibokuga Association member Furusawa Michiyo expressed great interest in Dongba pictographic myths, saying: "Dongba paintings are both simple and vividly colorful. This blend of primal spirit and visual intensity resonates well with my own aesthetic taste."

Association member Tokunaga Chikako said it was "truly special to depict Dongba script through ink painting" and called communicating in Chinese with ADCA artists "a valuable experience."

Dr. Duncan Poupard, an assistant professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and a foreign expert and researcher in Naxiology at the ADCA, was heartened by the exhibition. He said: "There were many good exhibits on display, as well as scholarly writings and beautiful Dongba scriptures. It was a very meaningful event. It is clear that the Japanese public appreciates this minority culture."

Tokyo's Kokugakuin University professor Kurosawa Naomichi called it "a great success, both academically and socially."

The exhibition also featured research publications by Chinese, Japanese and Western scholars, demonstrating global academic interest in Naxi studies and Dongba culture.

Visitors view the "Echoes of Heaven and Earth: Sino-Japanese Dongba Culture and Art Joint Exhibition" in Gifu, Japan, Sept. 9, 2025. [Photo courtesy of ADCA]