An understanding of the museum as an exhibiting space, rather than as a research-based organisation, has led to the current lack in China of institutions tasked with archiving and making art documentation public. A number of projects organised by the author in Shanghai and elsewhere, including History in the Making: Shanghai 1979-2009 and From a History of Exhibitions towards a Future of Exhibition-Making, have addressed the role of archives in exhibition making, while developing new documentary resources for curatorial and art historical research.