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wide view of museum exhibit galleries

Explore Global Cultures

Discover North Carolina’s only museum dedicated to the study of global cultures. Explore stories of humanity, from ancient archaeological sites to the celebrations and struggles of today. Learn about people from around the world through their everyday objects, ceremonial artifacts, and visual arts.

Open Tuesday to Saturday, 10:00am to 4:30pm. Admission is free.
Find the Museum on the Wake Forest campus.

Featured Exhibits

archery exhibit

Archery: Hunting, Warfare and Identity
Extended through September 26, 2026

Day of the Dead exhibit

Life after Death: Celebrating Day of the Dead
Through December 11, 2026

See All Exhibits

Upcoming Events

Day of the Dead exhibit

Legacy: Apartheid's Shadow Film Screening

Wednesday, September 23, 5pm

Booth at Historic Bethabara Park Apple Fest

Saturday, September 26, 10am-4pm

Booth at Reynolda House Community Day

Saturday, October 10, 10am-2pm

Recent News Stories

SEMC Comes to Winston-SalemSeptember 8, 2026
Museum Sponsors Repatriation WorkshopMay 28, 2026
Registration Now Open for Summer WorkshopsApril 29, 2026

See All News Stories

Explore the Collection with the Artifact of the Month

Haitian Cut Iron ArtSeptember 2, 2026
Longuda Anthropomorphic PotAugust 3, 2026
Cherokee PotJuly 1, 2026

See All Artifact of the Month

Find a Craft Activity with Cultures Up Close

See All Cultures Up Close

Stay in Touch

Receive updates on exhibits and events from the Lam Museum

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Sep 8

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Today's the day! "Life after Death: Celebrating Day of the Dead" is now open and will be on display through December 11. See if you can find what we've added since last year!

#lammuseum #DayOfTheDead #díadelosmuertos #díademuertos #mexicanart

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Sep 4

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The Museum will be closed Saturday, Sept. 5, through Monday, Sept. 7, for Labor Day weekend. Enjoy the holiday and we look forward to seeing you next week!

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Sep 2

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Our September #ArtifactOfTheMonth is a piece of Haitian cut iron art (koupe fè in Haitian creole). Haitian metal artists traditionally use discarded oil drums as their base material. To transform them into art pieces, they first cut the lids open and make a long slit down the side of the drum. Next, they light a fire of dried sugarcane, grass, or paper inside the drum to strip the metal. Then the artists flatten and cut the metal into sheets. The artists draw the design in chalk before cutting, hammering, embossing, and bending the heavy metal by hand to form the final piece.

Haitian cut iron art was pioneered in the city of Croix-des-Bouquets in the 1950s by blacksmith Georges Liautaud (1899–1991), who started out making metal crosses for public cemeteries before expanding to more elaborate works. This piece was made by Joseph Louis-Juste (1940-1989), who started working with Liautaud in the 1960s. Joseph is the youngest of the Louis-Juste brothers, whose work gained international acclaim contributing to the spread of the art form. Today, there are hundreds of metal artists sculpting in workshops across the country, but the primary center remains Croix-des-Bouquets.

Birds, like the chickens depicted here, are a common subject for iron artists, but they also draw on many other themes, including scenes from nature, musical bands, and mythical creatures like angels and mermaids. Symbols from Haitian vodun, an Afro-Caribbean religion, are also popular.

By repurposing industrial waste into domestic art, Haitian artists assert their cultural creativity and resilience even when raw materials are difficult to find. This piece’s creation reflects the power of artistic innovation in the face of economic constraints.

Research assistance for this post was provided by Mingyang Zhou (’27).

#Haiti #Haitianart #lammuseum

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Aug 31

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Mark your calendar! We have a busy semester planned and we hope to see you soon!

#lammuseum #wakethearts #thingstodoinwsnc

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Aug 21

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Our favorite time of year is coming... "Life after Death: Celebrating Day of the Dead" opens on September 8!

#lammuseum #dayofthedead #díadelosmuertos #diademuertos #diadelosmuertosart

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Aug 11

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This is the final week to see "Return to Sender? Aboriginal Cultural Heritage and Repatriation" before it closes. Don't miss this opportunity to learn about Australian Aboriginal culture!

#lammuseum #AboriginalAustralia #aboriginalart #Free #thingstodoinwsnc

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Aug 3

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Our August #ArtifactOfTheMonth is an anthropomorphic pot from the Longuda people of northeastern #Nigeria. Along with their neighbors, the Cham and Mwana people, the Longuda use anthropomorphic pots like this one in traditional healing practices, particularly in the treatment of spiritual disturbances that overlap with mental health issues and neurological disorders. The terracotta pots are known as kwandalowa or kwandalha to the Longuda and itinate to the Cham and Mwana. Though very similar in purpose and appearance, the #Longuda pots are made by women, while among the Cham and Mwana, they are made by men.

The Longuda believe that this type of anthropomorphic pot can absorb and hold maladies. In healing rituals, a diviner transfers the illness into a pot, where it can be contained. The diviner first meets with the patient and commissions a potter to make a vessel in a specific design. The potter must be very skilled and knowledgeable about the different forms the diviner may prescribe to ensure that the ritual will be effective. Before the potter begins to form the vessel, she brings the raw clay into contact with the patient to start the process of moving the sickness into the pot. Once complete, the diviner activates the pot, and the patient takes it home. After the patient has been cured, the pot is discarded far from the village.

The appearances of healing pots like this one often evoke illness through rough texture, bumps, scales, or pained expressions. The open mouth is both functional for containing herbal concoctions and symbolic of the vessel’s role in receiving and transmitting healing knowledge.

#ceramics #healing

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Jul 6

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Registration for our Mandala Workshop will close this Friday at noon. Don't miss your chance to join us for this fun and educational afternoon! Register today via the Upcoming Events link in our bio.

#lammuseum #wakethearts #mandala #sandmandala #thingstodoinwsnc

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Jul 2

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The Museum will be closed Friday and Saturday, July 3 and 4, for Independence Day. Have a happy and safe holiday weekend! 🎆

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Jul 1

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As the country prepares to mark America’s 250th anniversary, we’re using July’s #ArtifactOfTheMonth to spotlight an Indigenous tradition that has been passed down from generation to generation since well before Europeans arrived in the New World.

For almost 3,000 years, the Cherokee people have made pottery in Western North Carolina. The oldest #Cherokee pots were large, hand-built, thin-walled, waterproof vessels that were stamped with wooden paddles to create rectilinear and curvilinear designs. The Cherokee used these pots for a variety of functional and ceremonial purposes. In the early 1900s, Cherokee potters transitioned almost entirely to hand-building a heavier form of pottery called “blackware” featuring incised decorations rather than stamped. This is commonly referred to as the “traditional” style.

This blackware Cherokee pot was made by Cora Arch Wahnetah (1907-1986). She was born into a family of recognized Cherokee potters and learned coiled and modeled pottery techniques from her mother, Ella Long Arch. She hand-formed her pieces using wooden tools and pit-fired them in a wood fire. Throughout her career, Wahnetah remained faithful to these older pottery traditions, preferring their simplicity over more modern techniques like pottery wheels and kiln firing. In the early 1950s, Wahnetah played a role in the beginnings of the Oconaluftee Indian Village, where she demonstrated pottery techniques for visitors.

Throughout much of the 20th century, tourists provided an important source of income for Cherokee potters. To appeal to this market, potters made more decorative shapes, like this one, though the pots were still made in the traditional style. In 1946, Wahnetah was a charter member of what would become the Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual cooperative, where this pot was purchased. This is the nation’s oldest Native American cooperative, providing Cherokee artists with a local outlet to sell pottery and other crafts while preserving and promoting their traditions.

#lammuseum #cherokeepottery #pottery

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Jun 23

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If you missed last year's exhibit featuring highlights from the UNC-Wilmington Collection, I have great news... it's now online! You can explore the full exhibit of more than 50 objects from all over the world via the Virtual Exhibits link in our bio.

#lammuseum #worldcultures #virtualexhibit

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Jun 18

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The Museum will be closed Friday and Saturday for Juneteenth. If you're looking for a great way to celebrate, check out the @triadculture celebration downtown on Saturday!

#juneteenth

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Jun 16

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There are still spaces available in our July 12 mandala workshop! We hope you'll be able to join us as we learn about this Buddhist art form. Check the Upcoming Events link in our bio to register today.

#lammuseum #wakethearts #mandala #workshop

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Jun 11

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Our exhibit "Pocket Change: A Story of Coins through Time" includes an opportunity for you to design your own coin. Stop by and add yours to our collection! 🪙🪙

#lammuseum #wakethearts #coincollecting #anthropology #exhibit

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Jun 9

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Interested in local archaeology? Don't miss Academic Director Dr. Andrew Gurstelle at the Lewisville Branch Library this evening at 6pm!

#lammuseum #archaeology #yadkinvalley

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Jun 2

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Our June #ArtifactOfTheMonth is a Kalinago basket from the island nation of Dominica. This basket was collected by E. Pendleton Banks, the Lam Museum’s founder, during his PhD dissertation research in the early 1950s. #Dominica, not to be confused with the Dominican Republic, is a small island country in the Windward Islands of the Caribbean. It is the only island in the eastern Caribbean where the indigenous Kalinago people still live, having been killed or driven from their other native islands during European colonization. Today, the majority of the 3,000 people on Dominica who identify as #Kalinago live in the Kalinago Territory, a remote area on the island’s Atlantic coast. It is the largest indigenous settlement in the Caribbean. The territory was set aside by the British colonial authorities in 1903, and the Kalinago remained largely isolated through much of the 20th century.

The Kalinago are known for their baskets made from larouma reeds. The multipurpose baskets, like this one, were used as storage chests and to carry a wide variety of items, including food like tubers, fruit, and fish. The baskets could even be made waterproof by lining them with balisier leaves, which are similar in appearance to banana leaves.

To make the baskets, the Kalinago first harvest the larouma reeds, which can grow up to ten feet tall, and split each stalk into four parts. They then use a knife to remove the inner parts of the reed. Different colors are achieved by leaving the reeds to dry in the sun for a brown color, burying them in specially prepared mud for black, or rubbing them with saffron for yellow. The Kalinago then weave the reeds into the desired basket shape.

The durability and tight weave of Kalinago baskets made them important trade goods during pre-colonial times. Today, the Kalinago sell larouma reed baskets and other crafts primarily to tourists, creating a vital income stream for the community while also preserving an important part of traditional Kalinago culture.

#lammuseum #wakethearts

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Jun 1

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Registration for our Aboriginal Dot Painting Workshop will close this Friday at noon. Don't miss your chance to join us for this fun and educational afternoon! Register today via the Upcoming Events link in our bio.

#lammuseum #wakethearts #Australia #AboriginalCulture #dotpaintings

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May 29

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Earlier this spring, the Museum sponsored a repatriation workshop in Niger bringing together young people to talk about archaeological heritage, stewardship, and the upcoming repatriation of Bura artifacts from our collection. You can read the full story via the news link in our bio.

#lammuseum #wakethearts #Niger #archaeology #repatriation

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