Collection
The Museum of International Masks and Puppets' collection is based on the six primary geographic locations of cultures: Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, Oceania, and South America. Within that the collections focus on specific cultures.
Our focused collections are:
- African masks and artifacts
- India
marionettes and shadow puppets - Indonesian masks & puppets
- Vietnamese water puppets
- Chinese Shadow Puppets
- Italy, Commedia dell'Arte Masks
- English marionettes
- Russian puppets and artifacts
- Mexican masks and Day of the Dead artifacts
- The World Collection
Individual masks and puppets that span the globe - Contemporary masks and puppets
a collection based on individual contemporary artists. - A world of Music, Folk and Ritual musical instruments
In each of our collections the attempt is made to collect for two distinctly different uses: "Viewing" and “Hands On." Art and anthropological museum pieces are collected for gallery presentations. Contemporary artifacts that are presentations of a culture’s heritage are collected for “hands on use” and performance.
Hands on contemporary artifacts are presented with supportive resource materials in Open Hand Theater's Traveling Mask and Puppet Museum, our "Out of the Box" artifacts lending library, and in selected artist residency programs.