Wedding dresses like those worn in five-day events, ornate replicas of mandalas and miniature brass lions are among the heirlooms from the homes of Colorado’s Nepali residents that can now be seen by passengers traveling through Denver International Airport, as part of the airport’s public art program.
“Heritage in Motion: Nepali Stories of Roots, Memory and Continuity” consists of half a dozen six-foot tall glass cases filled with about 30 objects encompassing Nepali culture – examples of typical celebratory foods, a miniature replica of its unusually-shaped flag, traditional jewelry and a range of cooking utensils – was installed on the mezzanine level of Concourse C and will remain there until August.
The exhibit is curated by community organizer Binisha Shrestha and her aunt Shanti Shrestha, both of whom are Nepali transplants to the Centennial state. More than two dozen display items were brought to the U.S. in the luggage of Colorado’s Nepali community, which consists of about 6,500 people.
“Most of the items we have are collected from the community members itself. And where they have been putting up all of these items at their homes for 30 years, heirloom pieces, which they brought all the way from Nepal,” Binisha Shreshtha said. Among them are brass bowls made by her father, a fabricator and collector of metal statues, bowls and other objects in Nepal.
Pointing out little ceramic pots containing replicas of spices, she said, “We have tried to show, I mean everything: Nepali culture, art, music, food. So these are replicas of the real food, how it looks like.”
Moving to the next one, she pointed to what looked like a perforated bowl: “This is the traditional grater, which is made of brass, which has been used (in the) past 70, 80 years before, in very affluent families back in Nepal.”
Also on display are silk robes, placed on posed mannequins, some of them also wearing straw hats.
Describing some of the exhibits allowed the elder Shrestha to share some family lore: She said her wedding back in Nepal before she moved to the U.S. lasted five days. Her being the only female descendant from a male-heavy lineage put her in the marriage ceremony spotlight.
“Because I’m the only child. And then I have three (uncles). My dad is the middle and first has no girls. And second, third uncle has no daughter. So that’s why I have five days taking (my) wedding,” she said.
This display is part of the Public Art Program that began including the display cases on the Concourse C mezzanine level less than two years ago and is led by Samantha Weston, Public Art and Exhibitions manager at Denver International Airport.
She said Binisha Shrestha applied online after hearing about the opportunity from a friend of hers who helped put together a previous exhibit, “Denver Is My Home,” about Chinatown and other Asian communities in Colorado, on display there in 2025.
The Shresthas said seeking inclusion at DIA was a natural progression from having curated “A Mosaic of Cultures: Aurora’s Nepali Community,” a larger version of a similar show at the Aurora History Museum in 2024. From there, it went on to the Museum of Boulder, and now appears in a more streamlined version at the airport, visible only to ticket-holders who have passed through security gates.
When Weston received the application, she said it fit in with the goal of the rotating displays.
“When we are creating our calendar and our schedule for the year, we look at a variety of factors. We try to be very varied in the types of displays that we're doing,” she said."We like to kind of shift between more fine arts, cultural, historical, educational. So we look at all of those factors and see where things can fit in. And luckily, we were able to work with Binisha and bring ‘Heritage in Motion.’“
She said at any given time, they’re considering between 30 and 40 different proposal applications.
“We were really excited about this exhibition. We loved that this is telling a story from our community that we haven't had the opportunity to do here before. And she had such a wide array of beautiful objects and stories.”
