Last Day Is On May 9!
Legacies on Display: The Forbidden and Venerated Arts of Burma
August 27, 2025 – May 9, 2026
From NIU’s Art Museum Current Exhibitions page:
Through a display of 19th to 21st century Burmese ivory, silver, textiles, and paintings, Legacies on Display reveals the complicated history of cultural and artistic objects and the lasting impact, intended or unintended, they leave behind as they travel from their point of origin to their final home in a museum, where a new history of public display and interpretation begins. Using the Burma Art Collection at NIU to explore these issues, this exhibition examines and questions the changing narratives that objects undergo as their life extends beyond a generation. From the once venerated elephant ivory carvings to the once forbidden modern protest paintings, Legacies on Display interrogates how meanings and interpretations are created, changed, and left behind as part of our human record.
Legacies on Display invites viewers to reflect on the role of museums in the collecting, displaying, interpreting, and preserving of the past. How can we, as contemporary viewers, reconcile with artistic practices that are now understood to have had devastating effects on our past and present? How should we interpret artistic works that continue to hold true today in a world of continued political instability? And how can museums use these legacies as a catalyst for positive change? Through a diverse multimedia display, this exhibition demonstrates how our interpretation of art can simultaneously create and dismantle the legacies of the past.
These exhibits have been curated by Carmin Berchiolly, Curator of the Burma Art Collection, Center for Burma Studies. Installation assistance: Danni Hernandez, Ari Norris, Catherine Raymond, and Khaing Wai Wai Zaw. Graphic design: Sophia Varcados.
