The National Taiwan Museum (NTM) will kick off an exhibition Tuesday featuring collections of different artifacts and cultural relics from Southeast Asia.

“A Centenary Dialog: When Transnational Migrants and Museum Collections Cross Paths” will showcase cultural relics from the region collected since the museum’s founding over a 100 years ago, NTM Director Hung Shih-yu (洪世佑) said at a preshow press conference.

This event has a special connection with Southeast Asian immigrants, migrant workers and artists in Taiwan, all of whom contributed invaluable input to the NTM for the curation of the exhibition, Hung said.

The exhibition will display more than 60 different handicrafts ranging from traditional kris daggers to wooden puppets and gamelan instruments from the region, the museum said.

There will also be exhibits from Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia that have been provided by private collectors and institutions.

Another of the highlights will be a statue of a traditional Balinese barong, which was donated to the NTM by the Indonesian Economic and Trade Office to Taipei in 2019, the museum said.

The barong is a masked, panther-like creature in Balinese mythology that appears in celebrations in Bali and is a symbol of health and good fortune.

The gift by the Indonesian representative office was made at the time hoping that the NTM would further promote Indonesian culture through its collections.

The NTM exhibition will be held from Tuesday until June 18, 2023.

Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel