Displaying Authenticity in Museums in China

How is authenticity constructed and displayed in museums in China? How is it rendered by museum professionals and perceived by the audience? Using cases from galleries of Neolithic pottery from China and quotes from visitors' questionnaires, I will describe staged authenticity in museums and explain how the combination of different forms of intrinsically artificial creations can reinforce and validate the general perception of authenticity in museums. We will discuss less the concept of objects' authenticity and more about the process of authentication. We will see how museums can make themselves phenomenologically authentic and if and how the visitors perceive experiential authenticity during their visit.