Shadow Puppets on Display

The “geometry gallery” in ThinkSpace features changing displays of natural and man-made objects that provide strong visual representations of spatial thinking, highlighting shapes in everyday life and the designed environment.  Discover the newest installation: intricate and colorful Chinese and Indonesian shadow puppets on loan from the collection of Hillary Salmons – executive director of PASA and friend of the Museum – whose family collected the puppets on their travels in the 1980s. The display will be on view through June.

Shadow puppetry, an old tradition in Asia and other parts of the world, is a form of storytelling performed with flat jointed puppet figures made from leather or paper used in conjunction with music and singing.  Puppeteers use rods to move the puppets between a light source and a translucent screen, creating the illusion that the figures are walking, dancing, laughing and more.  The use of color and the way they are cut can reflect different personalities and characters.

“Shadow puppetry is a great example of spatial thinking as it involves changing, manipulating and transforming shapes in space – changing perspective, orientation, scale and more,” said Exhibits Director Robin Meisner.

Inspired by the puppets?  Use the silhouettes and wooden geometric solids in the ThinkSpace shadow box to create a scene and tell your own shadow story!