Right now, due to the limited conditions at grassroots level museums, few people have the capacity or conditions to perform good research. "But, this year's Government Work Report mentions the need to develop a systematic protection of cultural relics, and that can only be achieved through systematic studies. This is what lower-level museums fail to complete," says Guo.
As a geology major at Kunming University of Science and Technology, Guo was attracted to Chengjiang fossils at a paleontological geology lesson in 2006. He was keen to learn about the fossils, which are the traces of one of the earliest groups of living beings in the world.
After graduation, he was recruited by the administrative committee of Chengjiang Fossil Site nature reserve to be engaged with protection and management of the site. At the same time, he was admitted to Yunnan University as a postgraduate student to learn more about Chengjiang fossils from his tutor Hou Xianguang, a researcher who discovered the fossil group in 1984.
In 2014, when the Chengjiang Fossil Site Natural History Museum was being planned, Guo participated in the whole process from fund collection, appearance and exhibition design to artifact collection and the museum's operation.
Guo says his ideas pertaining to grassroots museums were formed during this process.
When the museum was officially opened in 2020, despite being affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, it still attracted 2 million visits. "It has played an important role in the education of primary and middle school students. Many schools have organized extracurricular activities at our museum, which have been welcomed by the students," says Guo.
He also mentions that, as well as cultural heritage-themed museums, which enjoyed a huge spike in interest in the past few years, nature-themed museums are also very popular.
"Several years ago, culture-themed museums were distributed in an uneven way, mostly in first-tier cities like Beijing and Shanghai and coastal areas. But, in recent years, they have been built in less-developed cities and gained huge popularity among the wider public," says Guo.
