Collections / Explore the Collection
Today at the Museum

May 23, 2013

Thinking Globally: Exploring the MIA's Indian and Southeast Asian Art Collection

7 – 8 p.m.
Pillsbury Auditorium

Presenter: Risha Lee, the MIA's Jane Emison Assistant Curator of South and Southeast Asian Art. The MIA's Indian and Southeast Asian art collection contains many gems of art, produced in a variety of times and places. In an introduction to the collecti...

Mississippi Delta
Title:Mississippi Delta
Artist:Siah Armajani
Date:2005-2006
Creation Place:North America, United States
Credit Line:Gift of Siah Armajani
Image Copyright:© Siah Armajani
Accession Number:2010.100a-c
Armajani's drawing captures the disaster that befell the Gulf Coast and New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. All of the destructive forces of water are unleashed when a great flood occurs. Waters overflowing banks, dykes, and levees contaminate water and sewage treatment facilities making tap water undrinkable. Industrial waste, agricultural chemicals and other pollutants get added to the mix and flow into neighborhoods. Water shortcircuits electrical systems, turning out the lights, shutting down refrigerators and freezers, leaving little to eat. A dining table with empty plates, a bed, and a house, the comforts of home, flow downstream. A car floats by upside-down, no longer a means of escape. Upstream the bridge has collapsed. Crows survey the catastrophy, ignore the scarecrow, and wait to exploit the carnage.