Cultural Corridor · Wing Two
International
Fourteen displays gathered from around the world, hung along the corridor as they appear at our centre. Scroll to walk it.
China · from 7th c. BCE
The Great Wall
Twenty-one thousand kilometres of rammed earth and brick across five dynasties form less a wall than a spine running along China’s ridges.
01 · China · from 7th c. BCE
The Great Wall
Twenty-one thousand kilometres of rammed earth and brick across five dynasties form less a wall than a spine running along China’s ridges.
02 · Japan · spring
Hanami
Under cherry blossoms in short-lived bloom, Japan celebrates mono no aware, the gentle ache of things being beautiful because they end.
03 · Florence · 15th c.
The Renaissance
A city of bankers and stonemasons rediscovered antiquity and taught Europe perspective; the era’s rebirth is crowned by Brunelleschi’s dome.
04 · Andalusia · Spain
Flamenco
Song born of Roma, Moorish and Andalusian grief and joy carries heel-work, hand-claps and a voice that cracks on purpose.
05 · West Africa · Mali Empire
Djembe Drums
Carved from a single trunk and tuned by fire, the djembe carried news, ceremony and rhythm across the Sahel long before letters did.
06 · Brazil · pre-Lent
Rio Carnival
For five days, two million people a day fill the streets while samba schools that rehearsed all year get seventy minutes of parade.
07 · Egypt · 2560 BCE
Pyramids of Giza
The last standing Wonder: 2.3 million blocks aligned to true north so closely that modern engineers still argue over how.
08 · Greece · 5th c. BCE
Agora of Athens
Here citizens invented the habit of arguing in public, and philosophy, drama and democracy shared one marketplace.
09 · Sápmi · Arctic
Nordic Aurora
For the Sámi the northern lights were the souls of ancestors; for physicists they are solar wind on magnetism. Both readings belong here.
10 · Iran · millennia
Persian Carpets
Woven prayers take shape in a village rug that holds thousands of knots and a garden in wool, made to be walked on and to outlive its weaver.
11 · Buenos Aires · Argentina
Tango
Born in the port-side courtyards of two immigrant cities, tango became a conversation danced chest-to-chest, never spoken.
12 · Aotearoa · New Zealand
Haka
The Māori posture dance of defiance and welcome combines breath, chest slaps and rolling tongue, performed today at weddings as at war.
13 · Thailand · April
Songkran
The new year washed clean: a week of water fights that began as gentle pouring of scented water over elders’ hands and Buddha images.
14 · Italy · from 1094
Carnival of Venice
Behind la bauta and the white volto mask, Venetians once dissolved every rank for a season and wore anonymity like silk.
Walk it in person
This corridor exists for real. Walk fourteen panels at a walking pace at HuHaHo, Moti Nagar, West Delhi, then come see the originals up close.
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