On March 14, 2014, a special exhibition“Tujia Xilankapu Brocade in the West of Hunan Province” unveils at Special Exhibition Gallery, CNSM.

        “Tujia” ethnic minority, one of the largest minority groups in China, lives in Wuling Mountains,straddling the common borders of Hunan, Hubei and Guizhou Provinces, and Chongqing Municipality. And its fantastic brocade, Tujia Brocade, was accorded a place onthe first batch of "Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of China"in 2009.

        As the living environment and life style of Tujia people change, the technology of traditional Tujia Brocade is handed down less and less. In order to protect this fantastic cultural heritage,researchers selected 100 typical pieces of traditional Tujia Brocade patterns from almost 400 kinds of patterns they have collected from folk artists and collectors, and invited several local handicraftsmen mastering Xilankapu brocade technology to weave them out with the narrow lathe loom, which took three and half years. In 2011, China National Silk Museum bought them.

        In this exhibition, there will display 100 pieces of Tujia Brocade, most of which are Xilankapu, and over half of which are no longer handed down. “Xilan” in the Tujia language means“bedspread” and “Kapu”means “flower”. This flower brocaded bedspread is the main aspect of the Tujia dowry. Meanwhile, Xilankapu serves crucially to keep the historical, cultural, religious, ethical and such information about Tujia minority from generation to generation in those times without written language.

        The exhibition will last until August 22, 2014.