Digital museum established to honor residents' fighting spirit

On May 16, a digital museum was established to display works of art related to the fight against the novel coronavirus in Wuhan, Hubei province. The China Federation of Literary and Art Circles and the China Literary and Art Volunteers' Association launched the facility to record the battle via literature, music, paintings and photos.

"It is to record the fighting spirit and the voluntary deeds in the battle that involved all Chinese people," Feng Gong, a renowned artist and chairman of the association, told China Art News.

At the opening ceremony, which was livestreamed, people presented paintings, read poems and performed songs written about the epidemic.

Some of the songs and dances had already been performed in temporary hospitals to lift the patients' spirits.

Teams of photographers and filmmakers worked in the city, one of the places hit by the outbreak, to capture the smiles of medical workers or record their lifesaving endeavors, which boosted morale during tough times.

At 8 pm on Jan 27, during the height of the outbreak, residents opened their windows and sang the national anthem, while the slogan "Keep fighting, Wuhan!" rang out frequently.

Liu Xinglong, a member of the Hubei Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and director of the provincial Federation of Literary and Art Circles, was standing at his window with his family.

At first Liu felt uncomfortable, but his 7-year-old granddaughter sang loudly and strained every nerve to shout the slogan, which encouraged him to join in, he told China News Service in February.

"The moment I shouted 'Keep fighting, Wuhan!' I felt an easing of the pressure that had built up over all those days. I relaxed a little, as I felt I was making a small contribution to the city," he said.

Wuhan has survived many difficult times in its history, but that was the first time the 10 million people in the city, irrespective of position, had made every effort to fight an unprecedented epidemic, he added.

According to China Literature, a leading online literary platform, 13,000 stories written by Hubei residents were uploaded during the lockdown.

Meanwhile, the number of new authors who were published placed Hubei in the top six sources of literary endeavor in the first quarter of the year.