Fabrication and Installation of Exhibition Infrastructure in the New Burke Museum

FAIN: CHA-261891-19

Burke Museum Association (Seattle, WA 98195-3010)
Eldon Tam (Project Director: March 2018 to April 2025)

Fabrication and Installation of Exhibition Infrastructure in the New Burke Museum.  The grant would support casework, graphic panels, physical interactives, models, dioramas, lighting, and electrical elements.

The Burke is nearing completion of a new $104-million facility opening in 2019. At 113,000 square feet the new building is 66% larger with space for collections storage, public programs, and research. We are requesting a $500,000 Challenge Grant to complete one of the last remaining unfunded components of the project: the fabrication and installation of exhibition infrastructure. The grant will help cover casework, graphic panels, physical interactives, models, dioramas, lighting, and electrical. The three long-term humanities exhibits to be supported by the grant are being developed with source communities; all will emphasize the importance of museum collections as bearers of cultural knowledge. Complementing the museum’s architectural design—in which visible collections storage and working labs are adjacent to galleries—the exhibitions will challenge expectations and expand visitors’ understanding of the many ways in which cultural collections are important today.