Almost 50 years after its founding, the Asia and Pacific Museum in Warsaw can proudly announce the Grand Opening of its new permanent exhibition Journeys to the East.

The display shows extraordinary artefacts from Arab countries, examples of clothing and painting from the Qajar period from Iran, jewellery and handicraft from Central Asia, Mongolian objects of practical and sacral use, and artefacts from more than 18,000 islands that make up Indonesia which are the most numerous group of exhibits and include masks, traditional cold weapons, and ship models made of cloves.

Journeys to the east is spread out over 1,100 sq. meters of professionally designed exhibition space and showcases a selection of nearly 900 objects that are impossible to see anywhere else in Poland. Up until now, only some of the items had been displayed as part of temporary shows at the Museum. The permanent exhibition aims to provide Polish audiences with an insight into the richness and diversity of Asian cultures.

Join us on the Grand Opening Weekend of 25–26 June 2022 and take part in our programme of events which includes curator’s tours, a concert of traditional Indonesian music, and a talk by Dr Joanna Wasilewska, Director of the Museum.

Programme:
Saturday, 25 June

10:10 – Tales of the Great Steppe and more far-flung parts of Asia – meeting with storyteller Mirella ‘Baba Baya’ Gliwińska
11:10 – guided tour for children
11:00-15:00 – Indonesian shadow play for children: playing puppet masters – Dr Marianna Lis
12:00-16:00 – curator’s tour
Group visits (20 people): 12:00, 13:30, 15:00
16:00 – guided tour in English
17:00 – guided tour in Ukrainian
18:00 – concert of Indonesian music by the Warsaw Gamelan Group

Sunday, 26 June

10:10 – guided tour for children
12:00 – 16:00 – curator’s tour
Group visits (20 people): 12:00, 13:30, 15:00
16:00-18:00 – quiet hours at the Museum
17:00 – About the travels of people and objects, a talk by Dr Joanna Wasilewska, Director  of the Asia and Pacific Museum

Other attractions:
– Arts and crafts space for kids
– Lotus Cafe offering Asian treats

Free admission
To enter the gamelan concert you need a free pass that can be collected from the Museum’s gift shop.

 

The Asia and Pacific Museum in Warsaw, the only Polish museum whose collection exclusively contains objects hailing from Asia and Oceania, offers its visitors a fascinating journey to the east.

They will travel through the cities of the Silk Road under bazaar arcades, pop into a yurt of Mongolian herders and circle round a Javanese pendopo pavilion, marvelling at thousands of objects brought in from Indonesian islands. The Museum’s new exhibition showcases almost 900 of its most valuable artefacts hailing from Southwest Asia, Central Asia, Mongolia and Indonesia.

As the Museum approaches its 50th birthday, our visitors get the first chance to see such a large selection of our holdings on display together. These nearly 900 objects are evidence of the cultural richness of Asia’s different regions. The artefacts represent the heritage of a multitude of people of the past and present and are traces of ‘journeys to the east’ made by those who brought them to Poland.
^{Dr Joanna Wasilewska, Director, Asia and Pacific Museum, Warsaw}

Thanks to its attractive visual design and advanced technologies Journeys to the east is a very special presentation of the most interesting and valuable items in the Museum’s collection, which numbers more than 23,000 objects overall. Mounted thanks to a grant of almost 6 m Polish zloty from the Mazowsze provincial authorities, the exhibition aims to introduce visitors to the richness and diversity of Asian cultures.