Seattle, WA [June 24, 2025] — The Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington is pleased to announce its summer exhibitions, reflecting the museum’s commitment to amplifying diverse voices and providing first-hand experiences with contemporary art and ideas.
Spirit House brings together 33 Asian American and Asian diasporic artists who explore how art can bridge the realms of the living and the dead. The works weave personal and political histories shaped by war, migration, and generational memory. In we leak, we exceed, Kameelah Janan Rasheed invites visitors into an immersive environment that interrogates how knowledge, identity, and Black life are shaped by systems of compression—and imagines liberatory alternatives through poetic, embodied inquiry. Finally, a newly commissioned mural by Charlene Liu inaugurates the Henry’s Sculpture Court series. Drawing from foodways, landscape, and ornamentation, Liu reflects on culinary heritage as a path to understanding identity and diaspora.
Together, these exhibitions challenge, expand, and redefine how we see ourselves, each other, and the world around us.
The Henry is now free to all visitors.
Spirit House
July 26, 2025 — January 11, 2026
Spirit House investigates how contemporary artists of Asian descent challenge the boundary between life and death through art. A thematic exploration of the work of thirty-three Asian American and Asian diasporic artists, Spirit House asks the question, what does it mean to speak to ghosts, inhabit haunted spaces, be reincarnated, or enter different dimensions? Inspired by spirit houses, small devotional structures found throughout Thailand that provide shelter for the supernatural, this exhibition considers how art can bridge the gap between this world and the next.
Through the work in the exhibition, contemporary artists connect fragmented family narratives shaped by war, migration, and generational trauma to broader global contexts, creating new narratives that transform their difficult origins. With these artists as guides, Spirit House invites you to commune with your ancestors, reflect on significant memories, and journey through time and space.
Participating artists include: Kelly Akashi, Korakrit Arunanondchai, James Clar, Maia Cruz Palileo, Binh Danh, Dominique Fung, Pao Hua Her, Greg Ito, Tommy Kha, Heesoo Kwon, Timothy Lai, An-My Lê, Dinh Q. Lê, Kang Seung Lee, Tidawhitney Lek, Jarod Lew, Reagan Louie, Cathy Lu, Nina Molloy, Tammy Nguyen, Tuan Andrew Nguyen, Catalina Ouyang, Namita Paul, Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya, Kour Pour, Jiab Prachakul, Stephanie H. Shih, Do Ho Suh, Masami Teraoka, Salman Toor, Lien Truong, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and Wanxin Zhang.
Kamelaah Janan Rasheed: we leak, we exceed
August 23, 2025 — April 26, 2026
Kameelah Janan Rasheed (b. 1985, East Palo Alto, CA; lives and works in Brooklyn, NY) is a self-described “learner” who creates multi-media works that explore the poetics-pleasures-politics of Black knowledge production, information technologies, [un]learning, and belief formation. She often integrates found images and words alongside her own writing to create collaged wall installations and experimental video works. Across her work, Rasheed investigates the revision and life cycles of text, embracing expanded and embodied forms of writing and reading.
we leak, we exceed will activate the unique volume and multiple vantage points of the Henry’s double-height gallery, drawing together threads from physics, Black critical thought, and information theory to create an immersive environment that interrogates the spatial and social implications of compression. A common process used in data storage, spatial organization, and information systems, compression abbreviates and collapses complex ideas into more simplified forms. Rasheed questions the way compression comes at the cost of nuance and creates unrecoverable losses. She draws parallels between the compression of information and the containment of people, both physically and through the structuring and defining of identities. Through a network of video, sound, and architectural mark-making, Rasheed proposes alternatively what she calls “an embrace of Black excess and expansion” as a liberatory practice.
This presentation at the Henry builds off of Rasheed’s 2021 visit to the University of Washington for an open-ended residency organized by the Henry. During the residency, she engaged in transdisciplinary exchange with faculty and graduate students working across the sciences, arts, and humanities. The present exhibition considers the potential of traversing disciplinary boundaries to generate new ways of thinking and making meaning.
Sculpture Court Mural: Charlene Liu
July 2025 — January 2026
Charlene Liu (b. 1950, Taiwan; based in Eugene, OR) creates paintings, prints, and mixed media installations that blend family histories, cultural references, and decorative patterns. Liu incorporates wide-ranging traditions into her imagery, drawing from nature, food, still life painting, and European and East Asian art and design. When combined, these references explore memory, heritage, and identity, challenging linear ideas of art history and resisting fixed categories.
For this inaugural mural presentation in the Henry’s Sculpture Court, Liu presents a lush, imagined landscape built from food-inspired forms. This work builds on her ongoing engagement with food as a means to locate culture and heritage amidst diaspora. Rendered in a fluid, multi-layered, visual language, this fantastical landscape offers a portal to reflect on how culinary traditions build belonging in place and playfully celebrates the importance of shared food experiences
Spirit House is organized by the Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University. The Cantor gratefully acknowledges lead support provided by Pamela and David Hornik; and Aey Phanachet and Roger Evans.
Kameelah Janan Rasheed is organized by Nina Bozicnik, Senior Curator, with Em Chan, Curatorial Assistant.
Charlene Liu is organized by Nina Bozicnik, Senior Curator, with Em Chan, Curatorial Assistant.
Exhibitions at the Henry are made possible through the generous support of our annual sponsors, 4Culture and ArtsFund.