Staff Picks: Favorites from the Collection

Staff Picks: Favorites from the Collection


February 25, 2024 - August 18, 2024

Staff Picks: Favorites from the Collection features objects that were selected by members of the Museum of International Folk Art (MOIFA) staff. This is the first exhibition that MOIFA has presented with work chosen by all staff. The selections highlight the diversity of the museum’s collection and present the perspectives of staff through their favorite works. The MOIFA collection has grown to over 162,000 objects, representing more than 100 countries since its founding in 1953. Staff made their selections by touring museum storage, researching work in the collection, picking pieces from previous exhibitions, or choosing from a geographic area.

Exhibit Information Accessible PDF

Información de la Exposición PDF Accesible

Image: "BoBo bu Ko" Robotic Assemblage, James Bauer, ca. 1994, reused metal and plastic, commercial lawn chair, Alameda, CA, IFAF Collection, FA.1995.71.1V (photography by Kellen Hope)

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Protection: Adaptation and Resistance

Protection: Adaptation and Resistance


December 3, 2023 - April 7, 2024

The traveling exhibition Protection: Adaptation and Resistance presents the work of more than 45 Alaska Native artists who explore the themes of climate crisis, struggles for social justice, strengthening communities through ancestral knowledge, and imagining a thriving future. 

The diverse works in the exhibition range from regalia to images of traditional tattooing, graphic design, and posters for public health and well-being. Iñupiaq artist Amber Webb’s 12-foot-high qaspeq (a cloth hooded overshirt) features the drawn portraits of more than 200 Indigenous women who have been missing or murdered in Alaska since 1950. This Memorial Qaspeq makes visible the scale of loss and grief the tragedy of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) has in Indigenous communities, and with this installation, Webb calls for a solution to violence against women and healing for Native communities.

Protection: Adaptation and Resistance is a project of the Bunnell Street Art Center in Homer, Alaska. It is made possible, in part, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, The CIRI Foundation, the Alaska Community Foundation, Rasmuson Foundation, and the Alaska Humanities Forum.

Protection complements the MOIFA exhibition Ghhúunayúkata/To Keep Them Warm: The Alaska Native Parka, which opened at the museum in May 2023. The idea of protection is also inherent in Ghhúunayúkata/To Keep Them Warm, which examines the Alaska Native parka, a garment made for survival in the harsh environments where Alaska Native peoples live and thrive. Both exhibitions will be on display through April 7, 2024.

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Ghhúunayúkata / To Keep Them Warm: The Alaska Native Parka

Ghhúunayúkata / To Keep Them Warm: The Alaska Native Parka


May 21, 2023 - April 7, 2024

Ghhúunayúkata / To Keep Them Warm explores the art of the parka, a garment made for survival in the harsh environments where Alaska Native peoples live and thrive.

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La Cartonería Mexicana / The Mexican Art of Paper and Paste

La Cartonería Mexicana / The Mexican Art of Paper and Paste


January 29, 2023 - November 3, 2024

Mexican cartonería is an artform that expresses human imagination, emotion, and tradition using the simple materials of paper and paste to create a diverse array of subjects such as piñatas, dolls, Day of the Dead skeletons, and fantastical animals called alebrijes.  The first exhibition to focus exclusively on a Mexican folk art tradition in many years, La Cartonería Mexicana showcases more than 100 historic sculptures from the Museum of International Folk Art’s Permanent Collection, many of which have never been displayed.   

The exhibition takes place in our Hispanic Heritage Wing, one of the few museum wings in the United States which devotes space to display the art and heritage of Hispanic and Latino culture.

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Multiple Visions: A Common Bond

Multiple Visions: A Common Bond

Permanent Exhibit
On long-term display

Multiple Visions: A Common Bond has been the destination for well over a million first-time and repeat visitors to the Museum of International Folk Art. First, second, third, or countless times around, we find our gaze drawn by different objects, different scenes. With more than 10,000 objects to see, this exhibition continues to enchant museum visitors, staff and patrons. Explore highlights from the GIRARD WING.

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