Exhibition from October 6, 2017 through March 30, 2018. Artwork from Asia constitute about one quarter of The Drexel Collection focusing on global design arts. The earliest pieces acquired by the collection, many of which represent the materials and techniques from the Middle East, China, Japan and Southeast Asia, were selected both as aesthetic objects and as a way to teach students good design and fabrication in art, science and industry. These artifacts and the early Drexel Institute’s purpose for collecting them demonstrate how ideas, artistic forms and design circulated across cultures through the mobility of people and products contributing to the creation of productive cultural exchanges.

The exhibition was curated in collaboration with Shushi Yoshinaga, associate professor in the Department of Design, and Pia Brancaccio, associate professor in the Department of Art and Art History. The exhibition was made possible with the generous support of Hazem D. Maragah, PhD and Drexel Alumni.