Feb. 14 – Sept. 6, 2026
A major exhibition that transforms USC Pacific Asia Museum into an immersive journey through myth and the immigrant story, Mythical Creatures: The Stories We Carry is sweeping in scale and deeply personal in tone, its narrative written in verse in a voice evocative of a wise uncle to a loved one. The exhibition draws approximately 100 objects from USC PAM’s significant collection—which spans more than 5,000 years and includes art from East Asia, South and Southeast Asia, the Himalayas, and the Pacific Islands and their diasporas— blending them with new and interactive media technology and works by 24 contemporary artists , most commissioned for the exhibition. The result is an interdisciplinary experience in which visitors engage with the past through creative activations of pan-Asian mythology that ignite feeling and memory.
In Mythical Creatures, visitors move through various creative environments, including a shadowy night crossing filled with demons, a homey rendition of an immigrant’s first apartment, and a gilded room spotlighting a gold Jin Chan frog that dispenses coins. Dragons, cranes, guardian spirits, and shapeshifters appear throughout as metaphors for internal states and intergenerational legacies.
