Cham Masks Highlighted in 2026 Gallery Installation

Fourteen people, mostly students, pose for a group photo in front of wall text about Tibetan Buddhism and Cham masks.

In May, students in the Columbia University/AMNH Museum Anthropology program added a supplementary labels featuring QR codes that link to webpages with additional information to enliven the presentation of Cham masks in the Hall of Asian Peoples.
John Flynn/© AMNH

Over the past several years, students in the Columbia University/AMNH MA program in Museum Anthropology (MUSA) have been developing supplementary labels and QR sites to deepen visitor appreciation of exhibits in the Museum’s Hall of Asian Peoples and to bring community voices into the conversation.

This year’s project, “Cham: Encounters in Sacred Space,” uses archival and contemporary photography and moving media to enliven an otherwise static presentation of masks like those used to a sacred purpose in seasonal festival across the Himalayas and in diasporic communities around the world.

Learn more about Cham masks and other MUSA projects:

2025-2026, “Cham: Encounters in Sacred Space”

“Cham: Encounters in Sacred Space”

At annual festivals across the Himalayas, families encounter figures from folklore, history, and protectors of the divine landscape surrounding them. A full calendar of rituals, prayers, gatherings and preparations culminate in hours of ritual dance known as Cham (འཆམ་).

For audiences, it is a sensory feast. You feel the percussive music in your bones, smell purifying juniper incense, see swirling brocades and wrathful faces, react to jesters enforcing rules with slapstick comedy, and ultimately rush forward to receive blessings.

At the American Museum of Natural History, a large collection of Cham masks showcases the diversity and stories behind some of these captivating traditions. For the 2026 installation, Cham practitioners and student research bring a display of historical masks to life.

2024-2025, “Magnifying the Miniatures”

“Magnifying the Miniatures”

Miniature dioramas have long been used in museums to depict cities, scenes, and figures with astonishing detail. At the American Museum of Natural History, they have played a crucial role as educational tools, offering visitors a glimpse into different times and places through these small-scale worlds. However, miniature dioramas often simplify the complexity of each city’s rich history and the connections between them. Further, they contain many errors and reflect common stereotypes.

This digital companion recontextualizes and reexamines the role of miniature dioramas in museums by focusing on three trade city dioramas—Isfahan, Beijing, and Kolkata—in the American Museum of Natural History’s Hall of Asian Peoples. Through this exploration, we invite viewers to reflect on what these dioramas truly represent and their limitations as portrayals of historical pasts.

2022-2024, “Facing the Mannequin”

“Facing the Mannequin”

Historically, ethnographic museums have used mannequins to teach their visitors about cultures from around the world. But today most museums find other ways to do this same work. Many think that mannequins cannot represent an entire race, culture or group of people; others are concerned that mannequins freeze cultures in time.

Dive into the unique backstories behind some of the mannequins still used in the dioramas in the Gardner D. Stout Hall of Asian Peoples, which opened in 1980 at the American Museum of Natural History. Find out how the dioramas were designed and made and some of the problems they present, as you face the mannequin.

Students enrolled in the program for 2021–2022 and 2023-2023 curated and designed Facing the Mannequin, working with the professors David Harvey, Laurel Kendall and Ciné Ostrow. Students were introduced to exhibition design, from concept through production, by Museum staff and other museum professionals.

2020-2021, “A Woman Who Paints Thangkas”

“A Woman Who Paints Thangkas”

The Tibetan tangka (ཐང་ཀ), a Buddhist scroll painting, demonstrates the talent of its painter, here Lutsojam (ཀླུ་མཚོ་བྱམས།). Known as Lutso, she is one of the few female tangka painters in the community of Rebgong in Northwest China. Although crafted for the art market, this tangka was consecrated in a monastery following Buddhist practice.

Students enrolled in the program for 2020–2021 curated and designed A Woman Who Paints Tangkas, working with the professors. Students were introduced to exhibition design, from concept through production.

2019-2020, “The Camera is Our Weapon: Kayapó Video Warriors in the Amazon”

“The Camera is Our Weapon: Kayapó Video Warriors in the Amazon”

Innovation is key for survival. In the Amazon rainforest, the Kayapó use cameras as weapons to broadcast their powerful voices and activist traditions. As COVID-19 creates enormous challenges for museums and Indigenous peoples, this online exhibit extends a dialogue between contemporary Kayapó life and the more than 30-year-old Hall of South American Peoples at the American Museum of Natural History.

Students enrolled in the program for 2019–2020 curated and designed “The Camera is Our Weapon,” working with Amazon specialist Glenn H. Shepard, Jr. in collaboration with Kayapó leaders and filmmakers and the Goeldi Museum in Belém, Brazil. Students were introduced to exhibition design, from concept through production.

2018-2019, “Sanightaaq: Yupik Ceremonial Gut Parka”

“Sanightaaq: Yupik Ceremonial Gut Parka”

Students enrolled in the program for 2018-2019 curated “SANIGHTAAQ: Yupik Ceremonial Gut Parka” featuring a striking 19th century sanightaaq, or Siberian Yupik ceremonial gut parka, a powerful link to the animal and spirit worlds of the Bering Strait and valued by Yupik people today. They drew on the collections and research of the Museum’s Jesup North Pacific Expedition (1897-1902) and the conservation of this material by Museum’s Science Conservation team in consultation with Native experts. Students were introduced to the process of making and designing exhibitions by Museum staff and through visits to independent studios.

2017-2018, “Pueblo Bonito: Trading Treasures, Trading Ideas”

“Pueblo Bonito: Trading Treasures, Trading Ideas”

Pueblo Bonito: Trading Treasure; Trading Ideas, was produced with the Museum Anthropology Master of Arts Program offered jointly by Columbia University and the American Museum of Natural History and in consultation with Brian Vallo (Acoma Pueblo), Native consultant and director of the Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) of the School for Advanced Research, and Stephanie Riley (Acoma Pueblo), registrar for cultural projects at the IARC. It showcases objects that offer clues about exchanges between the Ancestral Puebloan society and neighboring groups to the south. The artifacts were collected during a Museum-led 1896–1900 expedition at Pueblo Bonito, one of the multi-storied sandstone buildings or great houses that were built by the Ancestral Puebloans.

2016-2017, “Three Masks of Bali: A Living Artistic Tradition”

“Three Masks of Bali: A Living Artistic Tradition”

In Bali, masks are used to entertain gods, Balinese and tourists at temple festivals and secular public performances. Balinese masks are also collected as works of art and tourist souvenirs.

The exhibit titled "Three Masks of Bali: A Living Artistic Tradition," was presented within a case in the Museum’s Grand Gallery (now Futter Gallery) from October 13, 2016, to May 7, 2017, in conjunction with the 2016 Margaret Mead Film Festival, highlighting the living artistic traditions of the region.

The display featured three recently acquired, contemporary Balinese masks from well-regarded carving workshops specially commissioned for the American Museum of Natural History and carved in 2012 and emphasized that these masks are not just static, historical objects, but living, sacred, and active components of Balinese culture.

2013-2015, “An Asian Bestiary”

“An Asian Bestiary”

A bestiary is a compendium of animals with a description of how the compilers understand them. Our Asian bestiary describes some of the ways a range of animals have been engaged and imagined in different Asian cultures. Notes were written by Columbia University M.A. students in Curator Laurel Kendall’s Exhibiting Cultures G6353y, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, and Spring 2015 courses, who were asked to select an animal and explore its broad cultural possibilities. Explored in this way the bestiary becomes a virtual exhibit.