The Suzhou leg of 2019 CNAF Digital Soft Brush Calligraphy Exhibition kicked off at Harmony Building, SIP on Sept 9, consisting of an exhibition of digitalized traditional Chinese calligraphy works and digitally created calligraphy works and dialogues and lectures on roles of digital technologies in calligraphy development.

 

It is learnt that China National Arts Fund (CNAF) initiated the Digital Soft Brush Calligraphy Exhibition in 2017 in collaboration with Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Automation (CASIA) which is known as the developer of a smart writing system that people can use to create digital calligraphy works. The exhibition has been held in Beijing, Chongqing, Changshu (a county-level city under Suzhou’s jurisdiction) and Ma’anshan (a city in East China’s Anhui province) before coming to SIP.

 

At the event, Wang Haijun, chief content officer at CASIA Cultural Big Data Engineering Center, and Xue Shuaijie, distinguished researcher at the center, gave the participants a specific introduction to the smart writing system, and improvised works using traditional writing tools and presented them to State Taxation Administration SIP Tax Service and SIP Public Culture Center, co-sponsors of the Suzhou leg. Wang also gave the participants a lecture themed “Modern Presentation and Innovative Development of Traditional Chinese Calligraphy”.

 

Concurrently, a campaign was launched to collect 10,000 calligraphy works created with the smart writing system for a contest.