Exhibition — Memories and Milestones: Asia and Asians at Harvard
On the crisp morning of November 13, 2025, the opening day of the Asia and Asians at Harvard Conference, the first-floor lounge of the Harvard Asia Center slowly filled with attendees finding their way toward coffee, conversations, and registration tables. Yet something else immediately drew their attention. A newly unveiled exhibition lined on the walls, its striking panels introducing Memories and Milestones: Asia and Asians at Harvard with vivid images, archival texts, and layered narratives that animated the room.
The exhibition opened in tandem with the conference and, for two days, its panels served as both backdrop and companion to the scholarly conversations unfolding downstairs. Visitors paused often, sometimes in the midst of conversation, drawn into stories that stretched back more than 150 years. One panel featured Ko K’un-hua, who taught Harvard’s first Chinese language course in 1879. Another displayed sepia-toned portraits of early Meiji-era students such as Kaneko Kentarō, whose presence signaled the beginning of Harvard’s dialogue with Japan’s rapidly modernizing society.
Further along, visitors encountered the graceful handwriting of Rabindranath Tagore, enlarged beside photographs and excerpts from his visits to New England. Other panels highlighted postwar scholars such as Sisir K. Bose and Joungwon Kim, whose contributions shaped fields as varied as medical education in India and Korean studies in the United States. The open presentation of these stories, positioned at eye level rather than behind glass, created an unexpected sense of immediacy and intimacy.
The multimedia exhibition invited unhurried movement and close reading. Designed with archival photographs and narrative captions, the panels formed something like a visual essay. Together, they encouraged visitors to consider how Asia has been imagined, studied, debated, and lived at Harvard over many generations.
At the center of the lounge, an interactive timeline wall quickly became a lively focal point. Conference attendees, students, and alumni gathered around it throughout the day, picking up markers to add overlooked moments, personal memories, or reflections inspired by the exhibition. Some contributions recalled family histories. Others marked institutional milestones. What began as a straightforward chronology soon grew into a multilayered record of experience, continually expanding as people added their voices. Visitors are warmly invited to continue to contribute their own memories, milestones, and reflections whenever they stop by.
Curated by Sugata Bose, in collaboration with Tenzin Ngodup, Memories and Milestones grounds the themes of the conference in the material traces of lived experience. The exhibition remains on view through March 2026, welcoming the wider public to explore these stories long after the conference has concluded.
Exhibition Details
Harvard Asia Center
CGIS South, First Floor Lounge
1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
On view November 2025 to March 2026
Free and open to all visitors.