Sculpting an appreciation for the arts

At the annual CPPCC session, which opened on Saturday in Beijing, Wu proposed key initiatives to stimulate arts education for the public, one of which was that it should be rooted in the country's excellent culture. "On one hand, it requires the carrying on of the best of traditional cultures which accumulated the wisdom of Chinese civilization formed over centuries, and on the other hand, our practices should also integrate the new cultures which have been created and reflect the need of Chinese people over the past century and under the banner of Communist Party of China."

He says it should be a social norm that arts education is all-encompassing and a type of lifelong learning. "Our job is to allow people to feel the beauty of physique, morality, thought, vision and nature, all the aspects of a person's life; and the education is accessible to everyone, anytime and anywhere."

He says that arts education should be a practice without boundaries, and should break them in both a geographic and disciplinary sense. Venues should not only include museums and art galleries, music halls, theaters and culture centers, he says, but art should also be brought to the "doorsteps of people's homes" — communities at the grassroots level and other public spaces closer to people's day-to-day lives.