To showcase the School’s approach to education and the research and creative work of its graduating students, the School of Art and Archaeology opened its 2026 Academic Festival and Graduation Exhibition on the afternoon of 5 June at Zhejiang University’s Xixi Campus.
Wang Jingdai, Vice President of Zhejiang University, attended the ceremony and delivered an address. Heads of relevant university offices, members of the School’s leadership, teaching supervisors, and representatives of faculty, students, and alumni attended, together with guests from various sectors who support the School’s development. The ceremony was hosted by Chen Hong, Vice Dean of the School.
Vice President Wang offered his warm congratulations to the graduating students and paid tribute to the teachers who had guided them. He remarked that the exhibition’s theme, DEEP TIME: A Polyphony of the Deep and the Distant, is rich in meaning—capturing the intellectual core of the School’s disciplines while vividly conveying the analytical rigor and creative ambition of Zhejiang University’s students. The School of Art and Archaeology, he said, is a kind of “generator of time,” a place where the grounded, evidence-based inquiry of archaeology and the far-reaching imagination of art move forward together. He expressed the hope that graduates would hold fast to a pursuit of both “the deep and the distant”—keeping to a rigorous scholarly spirit while broadening their horizons and sustaining a drive to innovate—and that, in the dialogue between past and present, they would write a chapter worthy of their generation.
This year’s exhibition brings together the diverse work of more than 150 graduates, spanning art history, archaeology, museology, design, and fine arts and calligraphy. During the ceremony, the School presented awards to the recipients of its outstanding graduation works and gave commemorative gifts to representatives of the graduating class.
The selection and recognition of outstanding graduation works is supported by the Culture and Art Development Fund of the School’s Tianze Academy. Its founder, Ms. Fei Xiaolin, observed that graduation is not only the end of one’s studies but, more importantly, a new beginning in life. The powers of critical thinking, the spirit of exploration, and the humanistic grounding cultivated during a student’s time at the School, she said, will become valuable assets as graduates make their way forward.
Bao Kechen, an undergraduate in Cultural Heritage and Museology (Class of 2022), spoke as the graduate representative. Looking back on her years of study at the School, she offered heartfelt thanks to her alma mater and her teachers, and said that she would draw on what she had learned to take up the responsibilities of a new era and to help shape the future while carrying its traditions forward.
Chen Kaixuan, Party Secretary and Vice Dean of the School, declared the 2026 Academic Festival and Graduation Exhibition officially open.
The exhibition runs through 19 June.
Scenes from the Exhibition
