Cambodian Refugee Monument at Lowell City Hall
The Southeast Asian Refugee Museum
A major goal for the Save Smith Baker Foundation is to establish a Southeast Asian Refugee Museum in the Smith Baker Center, with a focus on the resettlement of refugees in Lowell and the contribution that these immigrants and their children have made and are making in the city.
While saving the Smith Baker Center is a longer-term project, in the meantime, we are currently working on creating a traveling Southeast Asian Refugee Museum. We will do this with engaging interactive, and immersive exhibits that will travel together to various venues around Lowell before occupying its permanent home.
The first exhibit will be in collaboration with Middlesex Community College and will be on the MCC campus in Lowell.
There will be a preview exhibit at Middlesex Community College’s Academic Arts Center that will take place during the Lowell Asian American Film Festival on Friday October 18, and Saturday October 19, 2024.
The preview exhibit will be in the lobby and short videos about the museum project will be shown before the films in the festival.
The museum will contain exhibits about history, music, dance, sculpture, paintings, photography, graphic arts, textile arts, food, and religion.
All of these exhibits will be preserved and more will be added as the museum travels to other venues until it finds a permanent home in the renovated Smith Baker Center.
Sculpture in Lowell's Cambodia Town on Branch and Market Streets
Children representing the Lao community in Lowell at the 2024 Lowell Folk Festival's Parade of Flags