The Way in Patterns: An Immersive Digital Exhibition by The Palace Museum opened at Shanghai's Fosun Foundation on Dec 9, transforming the museum's treasury of patterns into a flowing dreamscape of light and shadow. The exhibition offers visitors a transcendent journey that bridges ancient heritage and contemporary sensory experience.

Having toured multiple cities to critical acclaim, the exhibition has welcomed over 367,000 visitors and was recently honored with the Grand Prize at the Festival of Audiovisual and Innovative Museum Media Productions 2024-2025.

Seven worlds of pattern

Patterns form a fundamental visual language of Chinese civilization, adorning objects and architecture to express philosophies of nature and life. Guided by this theme, the exhibition digitally reinterprets traditional patterns from The Palace Museum's architecture, ceramics, and textiles across seven immersive zones:

• Step into a majestic canvas of celestial clouds, dragons, phoenixes, and flora, feeling the vibrant life force embedded in imperial palace designs.
• Witness botanical and fruit motifs, reborn in digital light, celebrating nature's abundance and beauty.
• Use AI-powered exploration to uncover hidden connections between surface patterns and examine exquisite details in high‑fidelity 3D models.
• Watch as digital technology extracts and reconstructs brocade patterns, weaving them into a luminous, ever‑changing world of ceremonial dress.
• Look up at the digital starscape of iconic caisson ceilings from the Hall of Supreme Harmony and other pavilions, revealing a "palace in the sky" within classical architecture.
• See how auspicious lattice window patterns project history through shifting seasonal light, linking past and present.
• Create your own digital pattern using light as your ink, becoming an active participant in this living artistic legacy.

An interactive journey

The experience is brought to life through integrated digital innovation. Motion‑sensitive technology allows patterns to flow and change with visitors' movements. Image recognition and artificial intelligence reveal the cultural stories behind the designs, while immersive projection mapping on sheer fabrics creates a powerful, enveloping visual environment. Here, visitors are not merely observers but co‑creators, engaging directly in the transmission of cultural heritage.

Specially designed photo spots blend the imperial palace's crimson walls, lattice windows, and caisson ceilings with seasonal imagery, transforming cultural memory into a contemporary, shareable visual experience.

If you go

When: Now through March 1, 2026

Where: Fosun Foundation Shanghai, No 600 East Zhongshan Road Number Two, Huangpu district

Ticket prices:

• Single: 98 yuan ($13.91) on weekdays, 128 yuan on weekends & holidays
• Duo: 180 yuan on weekdays, 228 yuan on weekends & holidays

Ticket purchase: Available via the Fosun Foundation WeChat mini program.

Source: Fosun Foundation Shanghai