Chinese President Xi Jinping Thursday afternoon attended a signing ceremony for cooperation agreement on the development of the Hong Kong Palace Museum. The mainland and the Hong Hong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) will carry out cooperation in areas including relic display, personnel training and people-to-people exchange, according to the agreement.

A new museum, the Institute of Arab and Islamic Art, is [...] providing a platform for artists and scholars to exchange ideas and promote cultural dialogue between voices in the United States and Arab and Islamic countries.  

Ajman Tourism Development Department (ATDD) celebrated the International Museum Day on Thursday, internationally acknowledged on May 18th. The ceremony took place at the Ajman Museum and was attended by a number of Emirati heritage enthusiasts, Government officials as well as museum visitors, consisting of residents and tourists. The celebration included a number of heritage activities where the visitors could experience folk dances such as the Liwa and Ayala dances and samples delicious traditional cuisine. 

The many ways in which countries can cooperate in promoting cultural heritage and intercultural dialogue were the main topics discussed by the foreign ministers of Greece, Italy, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Peru, Bolivia and Mexico in the “Ancient Civilizations”  conference held in Athens on Monday. [...] Well-known Greek and foreign archaeologists, professors and museum directors from these ten countries spoke about the proposed actions and successful examples of culture management.

On Sunday, the Arab American National Museum will host Rock for Refugees, a concert to benefit the national campaign Take On Hate, as well as Freedom House Detroit, the nonprofit that helps new arrivals fleeing persecution. [...] Organizer Ismael Ahmed was inspired to hold the concert, he said, both by the rising hostility to immigrants and refugees nationwide, and the hopeful resistance that was sparked by the Women’s March and the airport protests over the president’s Muslim ban.

Irina Bokova, the director general of Unesco, talked about how culture was instrumental to economic growth, citing a 2015 study that said the arts generated 29.5 million jobs worldwide, more than the auto industry. “Development without culture cannot be sustainable or equitable or inclusive,” she said. Other discussions at the conference resonated more subtly with the most salient issues of the day, including panels on refugees, censorship, heritage preservation and cultural diplomacy.

Now, an exhibition featuring more than 100 artworks and models of the museum has turned the spotlight on the institution itself. It illuminates the story of the Louvre and its transformation from a medieval fortress 800 years ago, to a grandiose palace and then a home to academies and studios before it became the world’s most visited museum and a cultural titan.

The new director of the Vatican museums, Barbara Jatta, presented a new multimedia web site to journalists at the Vatican press office on Monday. The user-friendly site, available in Italian, English, French, Spanish and German, contains thousands of images plus over fifty videos and virtual tours and has taken almost three years to complete.