When was the last time you visited the Lyman Museum? If it’s been awhile, you’ll want to do so by May 31. The top-floor galleries — Island Heritage Gallery, Korean Grandfather’s House and the Special Exhibits Gallery — will close
When was the last time you visited the Lyman Museum? If it’s been awhile, you’ll want to do so by May 31. The top-floor galleries — Island Heritage Gallery, Korean Grandfather’s House and the Special Exhibits Gallery — will close June 1 for the indefinite future.
This is a necessary step in the construction of the museum’s new Island Heritage Gallery, scheduled to open in fall 2018.
The present exhibit is more than 40 years old and outdated, relating only a limited part of Hawaii’s human experience. The new gallery is the capstone of a 15-year journey to enhance the museum’s position as a world-class learning facility and treasured resource for future generations.
It will explore a historical timeline of the many peoples, cultures, events and ideas that have influenced the Hawaiian Islands and produced a complex and still-evolving society. Students and visitors of all ages will learn about the arc of Hawaii’s history — from the first Polynesian settlement and the influences of the Western world, to the impact of Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, Portuguese and Korean immigrants who came to work on the plantations, creating a new language (which we still use today), sharing food and customs and music, and helping develop the culture we call “local.”
The gallery also will highlight the development of Hawaii’s educational system, its political development from monarchy to statehood, and the renaissance of Hawaiian culture from Kalakaua to the present day.
