SEATTLE — A new exhibition at Seattle’s Wing Luke Museum is hitting the right notes.
"Sound Check! The Music We Make" showcases the role music plays in the lives and cultural identity of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders.
"If you come here to listen to the music, you will also be heard and seen,” said Joël Barraquiel Tan, Executive Director of Wing Luke Museum.
A Community Advisory Committee made up of musicians, educators and other community members spent a year conceiving the exhibition. It touches on an array of musical history, from traditional instruments and modern bands to changes in technology and the music industry itself.
"The amazing thing about Asian Americans is it spans everything from classical to K-pop to death metal,” Barraquiel Tan said. "Music, and the kind of joy that comes from music, is part of our toolbox to deal with and find light in this incredible time of change and conflict. This is medicine."
The exhibition is also universal. One display depicts a teenager’s bedroom, with band posters covering the walls, stickers affixed to a dresser, and K-pop comforter on the bed. Visitors can put on headphones to hear real people singing the songs they loved as kids.
"The incredible thing about music is it takes you both into your inner world and it also shapes your outer world,” Barraquiel Tan said.
Another room also offers guests a chance to sing karaoke.
The museum hopes guests will leave with a new perspective on music, and themselves.
"The exhibit itself is inviting you to build playlists, it's inviting you to sing karaoke. It's inviting you to listen - to listen and find yourselves in the music,” Barraquiel Tan said.
"Sound Check! The Music We Make" is free with the price of admission and runs through September 2024.
Wing Luke Museum is located at 719 S King St. in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District. It’s open from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. every day except Tuesday.
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