Smithsonian

The National Museum of Asian Art in Washington has opened an exhibition drawing unexpected connections between Chinese textiles and Japanese metalwork, presenting the two traditions side by side. The museum says the show highlights cross-cultural exchanges in craft and design across East Asia, offering visitors a fresh way to compare materials, techniques and artistic influence between the two cultures.

The Smithsonian is revisiting Indian Peace Medals, the engraved medallions given by European colonial powers and later the United States to Native American leaders as tokens of alliance and diplomacy from the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. The feature explores how these medals functioned as symbols of treaty-making and friendship, and how they are understood today as artifacts of complex and often fraught colonial relationships.