Samuel Bak Museum: The Learning Center

SBMLC is closed for the installation of our next exhibition, "Past, Present, and Futures", which will open on August 19. Visit our website and stay up to date on our next exhibition and programming opportunities. https://hubs.ly/Q04hLYXR0.

Image description: A dark blue square graphic announcing the closure of the Samuel Bak Museum at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, with the text "WE ARE CLOSED" prominently displayed.

Symbol Sunday! Lady Justice's s attributes symbolize that justice is supposed to be equal. The blindfold shows impartiality before a legal decision. Scales represent deliberation and coming to a conclusion through evidence. Finally, the sword stands for authority, reason, and the power to enforce justice. The double-edged blade shows that justice can cut both ways, swiftly and decisively.

This work is "Almost" by Samuel Bak.

Image description: Lady Justice blindfolded in a landscape.

Featured artist, Dinh Q. Lê, was born in 1968 in Ha Tien, a Vietnamese town near the Cambodian border. He presented little-known narratives of war and migration from the perspective of the Vietnamese diaspora. Synthesizing his own memory and perception with popular depictions in entertainment and journalism from Western and Eastern cultures, Lê’s singular voice reframed global histories of Vietnam and Cambodia, challenging censorship, exploitation, and propaganda from all sides.

He stated: "The memory of the Vietnam War is now a complex mixture: first the war photographs and then the Hollywood representations, which dominate the memories of Vietnam. So I want to break them down and start to insert other narratives that I feel have completely been left out. I was curious, asking about myself as well: where are my memories of the Vietnam War? Is it from the war photojournalist? The photo that was taken then, or the Hollywood representation, which is fictional? The personal memory? They all kind of jumble up in a way because it’s a combination between facts and fiction. Everything’s kind of merging, so I was trying to break the whole thing apart into pieces or to deconstruct it, to start to talk about how everything is merging between facts, between fiction, between personal memories into this landscape of surreal memories, neither facts nor fiction. That’s how the series from Vietnam to Hollywood started."

Read the full interview here: https://hubs.ly/Q04hLMhK0

Visit the Museum website for hours and to visit Lê's work: https://hubs.ly/Q04hLLM60

Image description: A man weaves together photographs.