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Thursday, March 15, 2018

Those Places Thursday: Balzekas Museum - Traveling Exhibits

The third (top) floor of the Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture in Chicago had some traveling exhibits during our visit on August 8, 2017.


The first, "No Home To Go To: The Story of Baltic Displaced Persons, 1944-1952," originally opened at the museum on August 23, 2014, and then traveled to other cities in North America as well as Lithuania.  It came back and now supposedly will be at the museum indefinitely, which is fitting as the Balzekas Museum was its primary creator.

The exhibit discusses the events and circumstances which led the refugees to leave their Baltic homelands (Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia), their flight from their homelands and life in the displaced person (DP) camps, and their later immigration to and settlement in the United States and other countries. Viewers, especially those who are DPs themselves or their descendants, are invited to share comments, stories, and photographs, many of which are included on the exhibit's website, through a questionaire.

Former DPs or their families donated many of the artifacts in the displays, such as these items of luggage many DPs actually used when they came to America:



Above:  Doilies embroidered by Ursule Lipčius in Lithuania and brought to the United States, donated by Nijolė Lipčiūtė Voketaitis to the Balzekas Museum collection.

Below:  Hand-woven linen towel brought from Lithuania by the Vebra family, donated by Romana Vebra Karlove to the Balzekas Museum Collection.  Below it is some sort of indentification papers, perhaps a passport.



Part of the exhibit was in front of a permanent exhibit at the Museum of a stained glass piece called "Daughters of the Sun," according to a museum postcard, by the artist Adolfas Valeška, although another source says the title is "Spring Time."




Another traveling exhibit on the third floor was called "Lithuania in the Mail Parcel."  The exhibit consists of ten wooden boxes meant to represent mailed boxes, each of which presents an aspect of Lithuania’s natural and cultural heritage. The exhibition also evokes the idea of "cabinets of curiosity" (Wunderkammern in German), which emerged in Europe during the Renaissance and became the prototypes of contemporary museums.

The boxes have interactive components, including audio and video.  Each represents a site or tradition that is on a UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) list or register:  World Heritage Site (four, including the capital Vilnius Historic Centre, pictured below), Memory of the World Programme (three on the register), and Intangible Cultural Heritage (Baltic song and dance festivals; Sutartinės, Lithuanian multipart songs; and Lithuanian cross-crafting).



More information about the exhibit and the ten subjects of the boxes is here:  http://www.unesco.lt/leidyba/lietuva-pasto-siuntoje and an example of a box unfolding is here on the designer's website:  http://justinasdudenas.lt/exhibitions/lithuania-in-the-mail-parcel/.


© Amanda Pape - 2018 - click here to e-mail me.

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