The annual Yuyuan Garden Lantern Festival is set to light up Shanghai on New Year's Day to mark the upcoming Year of the Snake, celebrating its 30th anniversary with a special exhibition taking place at the same time, organizers said on Dec 17.

Running until Feb 12, the 42-day event at Yuyuan Garden, a major tourism destination in Shanghai, features a diverse collection of lanterns that use the zodiac creature as the theme. Featuring various other elements of animals, forests, mountains and elves, the lantern installations aim to present a diverse, vibrant and harmonious scene of life forms.

Like the previous edition, this year's show is also inspired by Shanhaijing or The Classic of Mountains and Seas, a major source of Chinese mythology that dates back more than 2,000 years.

To mark the special occasion of the show's 30th anniversary, a special exhibition on Chinese lantern art will be staged along with the festival, which will be set up at Shiying Hall on the third floor of Huabao Building, Yuyuan Shopping Mall.

Themed "Beyond Lanterns", the exhibition is the first of its kind in Shanghai and will comprehensively showcase the history, folk culture, craftsmanship and unique charm of lanterns. In addition to 13 pieces of ancient lantern artifacts from museums and 10 nianhua (Chinese New Year paintings) kept in the Shanghai Library, the exhibition will also showcase lantern masterpieces made by inheritors of intangible cultural heritage from eight cities across the nation, including Shanghai, Beijing, Chaozhou and Shantou in Guangdong province, Zigong in Sichuan province, Quanzhou in Fujian province.

Meanwhile, the festival has expanded its presence nationwide to other cities. The lantern shows at cities such as Sanya in Hainan province, Shenyang in Liaoning province and Shehong in Sichuan province, will also be lit up on New Year's Day, immersing visitors across China in the charm of Yuyuan Garden lanterns.

"The Yuyuan Garden Festival is about showcasing our brilliant traditional Chinese culture. It used to be a folk activity in Shanghai, but now it is representing the Chinese lantern culture and its crafts, which we hope the young generation can know better about with more cultural confidence," said Hu Junjie, vice-president of Yuyuan Inc.