In one room, visitors sit inside a reconstructed airplane cabin as wraparound video fills the windows. In another, a gilded space spotlights a gold Jin Chan frog that dispenses coins. Down the hall, a shadowy passage teems with painted demons.
All 12 rooms at USC Pacific Asia Museum, at 46 N. Los Robles Ave., are given over to “Mythical Creatures: The Stories We Carry,” an immersive exhibition that uses mythology to trace the arc of immigration — departure, crossing, arrival, belonging.
Conceived by Los Angeles-born Korean American artist Dave Young Kim and blending roughly 100 historical objects from the museum’s collection with works by more than 20 contemporary artists and interactive technology, the exhibition opened Feb. 14 and runs through Sept. 6. Admission is $20 for adults, $15 for students and seniors, and free for military veterans and children under 17. The museum’s next Free Second Sunday, offering complimentary admission, is March 8.
Rather than mounting a show in a gallery or two, the museum cleared its entire building — a 1920s structure on the National Register of Historic Places that has served as a center for art and culture on North Los Robles Avenue for a century — and handed curatorial control to Kim, a muralist and fine artist who co-founded the Korean American Artist Collective in 2020 and previously created a mural at USC PAM in 2024.
“There’s a very clear journey and narrative that the viewer is supposed to go through,” Kim said in an interview published by the Pasadena Weekly in January. “They’re like scenes in a movie.”
The narrative is written in verse on the gallery walls, according to the museum’s press release — a voice meant to evoke a wise elder speaking to a loved one. Visitors move through environments that include a homey rendition of an immigrant’s first apartment, and they encounter works by artists including Dinh Q. Lê, Lily Honglei, Wendy Park, and Lauren YS. Most of the contemporary pieces were commissioned for the exhibition, according to the museum’s website. An AI video interaction is among the technology-driven elements woven through the rooms.
Kim, born in Los Angeles in 1979, said the exhibition draws on his family’s experience.
“I’m not an immigrant myself, but my parents are,” he told the Weekly.
The makeshift altars he noticed in restaurants and shops across Los Angeles became a touchstone.
“I would see these makeshift altars in restaurants and shops across LA, and that was a core inspirational point,” he said.
The roughly 100 historical objects on display are drawn from the museum’s permanent collection of more than 15,000 pieces spanning more than 5,000 years of art from East Asia, South and Southeast Asia, the Himalayas, and the Pacific Islands. Kim’s approach pairs those objects with the contemporary works to tell what the museum describes as emotionally resonant, present-day stories.
Bethany Montagano, director of USC Museums, called the exhibition “one of the most expansive projects we’ve ever undertaken” in a statement issued by USC. She said “Mythical Creatures” represents what she described as “a transformational shift in our direction at USC Pacific Asia Museum,” according to the same press statement.
The museum became part of USC in 2013. The structure was originally built by collector and entrepreneur Grace Nicholson and has been designated California Historical Landmark No. 988. Major financial support for the current exhibition comes from Pasadena resident and museum board member Mei-Lee Ney, with additional backing from Margaret Leong Checca, according to the museum.
The museum is open Wednesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Free parking is available in the museum lot at the corner of Los Robles Avenue and Union Street. The Metro Gold Line’s Memorial Park Station is about a half-mile walk away. For more information, call (626) 787-2680 or visit pacificasiamuseum.usc.edu.
“Imagine stepping inside an illustrated book of poetry written by a cherished loved one,” Kim said in the USC press release. Whether visitors read mythology or family history in the 12 rooms, the exhibition gives them until September to decide.
