At Deshou Palace Museum, renowned conservator Hu Lihong offered audiences a rare glimpse into the quiet alchemy of cultural resurrection. In a lecture titled “The Art of Blooming: Restoring Southern Song Ceramics and Reviving Elegance,” Hu, director of Hangzhou Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and a “National Technical Expert” in artifact conservation, spoke not only as a restorer but as a storyteller, breathing life back into centuries-old fragments through the lens of Eastern philosophy and aesthetics.

Deshou Palace, once a grand imperial retreat during the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279), has yielded thousands of ceramic shards through systematic excavations over the years. Though broken and long buried, these fragments carry silent codes of history, craftsmanship, and refined taste. Since 2020, Hu and her team have undertaken an ambitious restoration project that helps revive more than 200 artifacts - each one a recovered voice from China’s most aesthetically sophisticated era.

Drawing from her newly published book - “The Art of Blooming: Restoration and Aesthetics of Southern Song Flower Vessels,” Hu wove technical expertise into vivid historical narratives. She traced the journey of a double-handled vase originally from India - once a ritual object - that was re-imagined by Song artisans as a “Daji” (Great Auspiciousness) bottle, a cherished scholar’s desk ornament symbolizing harmony and good fortune. This quiet transformation, she explained, stands as tangible evidence of cross-cultural exchange along ancient trade routes. She also highlighted the museum’s crown jewel: a celadon-glazed, hexagonal “Seven-Spout Floral Arrangement Basin” from the Longquan kilns. Far more than a decorative piece, this vessel is a physical testament to the sophistication of Southern Song ikebana-like practices - and likely the earliest known prototype of the modern kenzan, the spiked flower frog still used in floral design today.

“Restoration is not about making something look new,” Hu emphasized. “It is about helping it speak again.” Guided by the principle of “minimal intervention, maximum information retention,” she and her team reject rigid notions of painstaking slowness. “With hundreds of pieces awaiting attention, speed is part of responsibility,” she said. As proof, she recalled an urgent commission for an exhibition at Zhejiang University’s Museum of Art and Archaeology: a seasonal-themed vase needed repair within hours. From 6 p.m. to midnight, her team worked tirelessly - the finished piece bearing no visible trace of its fractured past, a seamless bridge between ruin and renewal.