The Emperor’s Secret Garden

The Emperor’s Secret Garden documents the unprecedented partnership between the Palace Museum and World Monuments Fund to conserve the magnificent eighteenth-century Qianlong Garden in the Forbidden City. Directed by Chinese filmmakers Mandy Chang and Zhou Bing, the film reveals the Forbidden City’s first international collaboration and its first large-scale interior conservation project since the founding of the Palace Museum in 1925. The international conservation team focused first on Juanqinzhai, the Studio of Exhaustion from Diligent Service, a unique building with some of the palace’s finest surviving architectural interiors and décor. The Emperor’s Secret Garden also highlights the search for and use of disappearing traditional craftsmanship during the conservation.

Introduction and Q & A with Henry Tzu Ng, WMF’s Executive Vice President, who directs WMF’s programs in China, and Adriana Proser, Senior Curator for Traditional Asian Art at the Asia Society.