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| Ticket Info: | Free |
| Open to Public: | No |
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Dressing Difference: Exploring Burma’s Ethnicities February 12, 2015 - May 16, 2015
Displaying the clothing of people who differ from us with respect to history, language, physical features, customs, and beliefs is part of the practice of ethnography. Ethnography– from the Greek ethnos, meaning “people” or “race” and graphon meaning “written”– has been a part of human nature and human history since earliest times. Explorers, merchants, migrants, and envoys have collected and memorialized the clothing of “others” in written accounts, illustrations, and photographs. In the guise of empirical methodology, these collecting practices are attempts to fix and immortalize cultural encounters and to bring organization to confusing human diversity.
But what is the significance of collecting and putting someone else’s cultural symbols on display? How do these methods inform and shape our understanding of concepts like ethnicity and identity? What issues and questions arise when outsiders and insiders rely on ethnographic objects to construct or reconstruct ethnicity and identity? This exhibition invites visitors to grapple with critical issues while celebrating the inspiration for this exhibition co-organized with Northern Illinois University’s Center for Burma Studies, a pair of rare illustrated ethnographic albums from the Shan States area in Burma (Myanmar). Archival photographs and clothing and accessories representative of various minority groups provide opportunities for comparison with the ethnographic illustrations.
