featured exhibition
Katazome Today: Migrations of a Japanese Art
ends: June 11, 2023
Katazome Today presents contemporary visions of a unique and historically significant Japanese textile-dyeing process. Traditionally used for kimono dyeing, katazome involves the application of a rice-paste resist using special stencil […]
additional exhibitions
Learning to Look
ends: December 31, 2024
Art isn’t limited to paint on a canvas. We can see it in the natural world, historical objects, and the architecture around us. We all have the tools to appreciate […]
There Was a Time: Whimsical Relics & Eclectic Images
ends: May 21, 2023
The Whatcom Museum collects, safeguards, and makes accessible thousands of artifacts which we hold in trust for the community. But why keep this stuff? What do these artifacts tell us? […]
Vintage Vaudevillians Returns
ends: May 28, 2023
Vintage Vaudevillians returns to the Lightcatcher, in partnership with Whatcom Reads. This photographic exhibition highlights a dozen vaudeville acts that performed in Bellingham in the early 20th century. Originally used […]
permanent exhibitions
Catalog of Past Exhibitions
The Whatcom Museum was established as a municipal entity in 1944 (then known as the Bellingham Public Museum), operating out of the 1892 Old City Hall building. The year 1968 […]
History Exhibits at Old City Hall
Ongoing; Old City Hall The Museum’s 1892 Old City Hall building features a variety of exhibits that tell the stories of the building’s architecture, the city’s early days, logging history, […]
John M. Edson Hall of Birds
Opened March 16, 2017; Ongoing; Old City Hall This exhibit in Old City Hall provides a glimpse into the local history and culture of the Victorian Era, when taxidermy flourished […]
People of the Sea and Cedar: A Journey Through the Tribal Cultures and History of the Northwest Coast
Ongoing, Lightcatcher People of the Sea and Cedar, in the second floor gallery of the Lightcatcher building, shares the history and art of the Northwest Coast people, blending both historical […]
