Artwork by students of the University of Washington's Natural Science Illustration Certificate program.

A small display of objects from the Tse-whit-zen village archaeological site.

This Web site allows you to explore the villages of the Pacific Northwest Coast and see photographs of totem poles from each village, including historical poles as well as contemporary poles. You may also search the Burke Museum's collection of historical totem pole photographs.

Waterlines examines the history of Seattle through a focus on its shorelines: the natural and human forces that have shaped them, the ways they have been used and thought about by the people who have lived here, and how this historic understanding might influence urban-development decisions being made today.

The Biderbost baskets began their lives nearly 2,000 years ago along the banks of the Snoqualmie River in Washington. This exhibit examines the basketry objects more closely by looking at their origins on the Snoqualmie River, their excavation, weaving techniques, and the newest chapter in their lives as part of the archaeology collections at the Burke Museum.

See the remarkable story of prehistoric cultures that once lived in Seattle's Discovery Park—a new, interactive multimedia feature.

Powerful images by acclaimed wildlife photographers tell the international story of the thousands of migratory birds from across six continents that depend on the politically contested Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) for survival each year. Organized by the Burke Museum and Braided River, the conservation imprint of The Mountaineers Books.

Coffee is one of the world's most widely traded commodities, and has had a tremendous impact not only on the local economy and character of the Pacific Northwest, but also on cultures, economies, and environments across the globe. This exhibit explores the fascinating world behind the coffee we drink.

With camera in hand, wildlife photographer Steven Kazlowski has dedicated over eight years of work to bring to life the immediate reality of this most pressing environmental crisis — the devastation of the Arctic ecosystem through global warming and the endangerment of polar bears. Members' Preview, June 27. Opening Day, June 28.

This exhibit features materials from the Solomon islands collected by Walter J. Eyerdam. In the late 1920s, Mr. Eyerdam was hired as an ornithologist for the American Museum of Natural History's Whitney South Seas Expedition. At the time Eyerdam visited the Solomon islands in the 1920s, the materials he collected were still made for use rather than sale. Eyerdam's grandsons, Jeff and Michael Homchick, donated the materials to the Burke Museum.

This exhibit presents the beautiful work of students in the UW’s Certificate Program in Natural Science Illustration. This is the fourth summer the Burke has displayed the students’ artwork. The class’s goal is to increase the viewer’s understanding of the natural world through art that is scientifically accurate and visually compelling.

Stunning images by Washington wildlife photographer Keith Lazelle capture the dramatic beauty of the Olympic Peninsula's Hoh River, a pristine river flowing today as one of the United States' most successful examples of habitat conservation.

In honor of Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), artist Isaac Hernàndez Ruiz has created an altar in the Pacific Voices gallery. The ofrenda (offering) to the dead is based on the belief that these objects helped the departed continue their life after death. Altars are created out of food, flowers, drink, candles, bread, sweets and objects from everyday life.

In Peoples of the Plateau, historic photos by Lee Moorhouse document a visual record of Native American life in the interior Northwest as it transitioned from frontier life to the modern era. This photography exhibit was organized by the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.

This Place Called Home, an exhibit of Plateau native cultural arts, brings out the best of the Burke’s own eastern Washington collections, including beadwork, cradle boards, baskets, blankets, and more. The exhibit will include video interviews with tribal elders discussing their family heirlooms and ancestors.

A unique record of China’s rare and endangered birds by renowned artist J. Fenwick Lansdowne.  A limited edition set of 32 prints was created.

Created by the Smithsonian Institution, this exhibit presents the latest research on the giant squid—one of the world’s largest and most mysterious creatures.

This new exhibit presents stunning photographs by Florian Shulz of the Rocky Mountain west and documents an ambitious effort to preserve wildlife corridors from Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming to Canada's Yukon Territories. The exhibit was created by the Burke Museum in collaboration with The Mountaineers Books and Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative and features over 70 images by German-born photographer, Florian Shulz.

The Burke Museum presented the first comprehensive exhibition of contemporary Northwest Coast Native American art from the Burke’s own collections.  Selected by two Burke Museum curators and two guest curators from more than 2,400 contemporary pieces in the museum’s ethnology collection.

For a brief video preview of the exhibit click here. Also, check out the Seattle Channel Art Zone feature on this exhibit

This exhibition brings together 26 Indigenous photographers from throughout the US, Canada, Peru and New Zealand to explore the dynamic field of Indigenous photography.  Their artworks reflect a diversity of technologies, subject matter, vision, and style, but resonate together by the ties to their own communities. Developed by the CN Gorman Museum.

Transformations presents the work of 19 students in the UW’s Certificate Program in Natural Science Illustration. This is the third summer the Burke Museum has displayed the students’ artwork. The class’s goal is to increase the viewer’s understanding of the natural world through art that is scientifically accurate and visually compelling.

Found in lake sediments in the Skokomish River Valley, the sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) fossils now on view in the Burke Museum lobby are over one million years old. Learn about the skills and tools used by Burke fossil preparators to expose and extract fossil bones like those of the sockeye salmon.

These rare, early color photographs, taken by Frederick and Janet Wulsin on a four-year trek, were augmented by a display of Asian art from the Burke Museum collection, Sacred Portraits from Tibet.

This display of thangkas – large, delicately painted Tibetan religious paintings – augmented the photographs of Vanished Kingdom. The exhibit included a traditional Tibetan Buddhist altar by local artist and well-known monk, Dhawa Dhondup Ngoche.

Visitors experienced Mexican Day of the Dead traditions through a bilingual photography exhibit exploding with the rich color and spirit of the traditions of the Day of the Dead (Día de Muertos) in rural Oaxaca. A large altar created by local Mexican artist Isaac Hernàndez Ruiz anchored Celebration of Souls and gave visitors an up close look at the symbolism that shapes this Mexican tradition.

This annual international wildlife photography competition is sponsored by BBC Wildlife Magazine and the Natural History Museum of London and features nearly 100 prize-winning photographs in a broad range of wildlife categories.

Featuring prints of mammals and mammal behavior by Northwest Coast and Canadian Woodlands Native artists.

The Burke has added a small display of mounted bird specimens in the lobby, in response to visitors' questions about what kind of bird feathers are used in Maori cloaks and baskets displayed in Toi Maori: The Eternal Thread.

The Burke was one of only four U.S. venues invited to host this exhibit of contemporary Maori weaving art from New Zealand. The Burke Museum also displayed a small selection of Northwest Coast robes from its collection.

Prints with a political bent by Northwest Coast Native artists, from the Simon Ottenberg Collection, Burke Museum.

This exhibit included objects and artifacts that take a humorous look at death, from a celebration of the Day of Dead in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Nineteen Native American artists created works of art that draw upon their rich heritage to forge a contemporary Indian aesthetic. Their work shows a clear continuity with the past while forging new statements in art using the medium of glass to reflect contemporary sensibilities.

This exhibit showed forty-nine extraordinary photographs of the landscapes, wildlife, and people of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska by renowned photographer Subhankar Banerjee.

Isaac Hernàndez Ruiz, a noted Mexican artist living in Seattle, led the creation of a community altar in the gallery. This temporary offering in celebration of the Day of the Dead included artifacts from Oaxaca, Mexico.

From coins to corn and feathers to stone...money comes in many forms.  This exhibit includes early money from Asia, China, and the Mediterranean: coins in bronze, gold, silver and electrum, including a rare Tetadrachm Athena's Owl. Also, American paper money in the form of milled dollars, schillings, bond notes, treasury notes, and early American coins. 

A selection of traditional and contemporary Arctic animals from the museum's renowned Native American art collection and from the Inuit art collection of John and Joyce Price.

This art exhibit was the culmination of an intensive course of study for students in the University of Washington Extension Scientific Illustration Certificate Program.

505 million years ago a burst of life erupted that was more varied than in any other known period of time. The Burgess Shale fossils, found high in the Canadian Rockies, include ancestors of virtually all known living animals. Image courtesy Burgess Shale Geoscience Foundation. Traveling exhibit from SITES.

Take a photographic journey through the 100-year history of Chinese students at the University of Washington. An interactive exhibit created by two exchange students from China in the UW-Sichuan program.

This recently completed narrative painting reconstructs the arrival of the Lewis and Clark expedition to the Chinook Village of Cathlepotle, Washington 1806.

Dinosaurs of Darkness was a riveting international touring exhibit from Monash Science Center, Melbourne, Australia, featuring recently discovered dinosaurs that lived in the extreme polar regions of the globe, where darkness reigned in winter and temperatures plunged below freezing...

A photographic journey to the rain forests of southern Chile, Selva Fría: Cold Jungle, Photographs of the Chilean Temperate Rainforest, featured the rich color photographs of Chilean photographer Mariana Matthews.

Explore the ancient Celtic roots of Halloween, the colorful Mexican Day of the Dead, mummification and other death rituals in ancient Egypt, Indonesian cliff burials, and modern American memorials, including those following the 9/11 tragedy.

Whales, bears, and ravens are interwoven with the haunting photographs of Adelaide de Menil and vibrant images of pole-raising ceremonies. A retrospective view of Northwest Coast native totem pole traditions—from the earliest drawings of totem poles, through the time of seeming silence in the mid-1900s, to the vitality of First Nations cultures today.

Traveling 2003 - March 2004

Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times is one of the few museum exhibits to examine the tumultuous Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, which shook China from 1966 to 1976. Learn about this turbulent time in China's history; see the paraphernalia of Red Guards on the march; and ponder the items and artifacts of everyday life, full of redness and Mao and militancy.

The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition brings to life one of the greatest tales of survival in exploration history: the epic story of Sir Ernest Shackleton's 1914 voyage. Toured by the American Museum of Natural History, New York.

From ancient times, Native American basket weavers have transformed roots, bark, ferns, and grasses into baskets unsurpassed for their aesthetic appeal. These works of art and the people who have designed and woven the baskets were at the heart of this exhibit. Includes a basketry ID game and K–12 teachers guide.

The human remains popularly known as "Kennewick Man," found on federal lands in Eastern Washington in 1996, have been the subject of a lawsuit between the federal government and a group of scholars.