When the Genghis Khan exhibit opens at Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute on May 9, Gankhuyag “Ganna” Natsag expects a special guest to be in attendance — in spirit, not in body.
The Arlington resident, who was profiled in Sunday’s Washington Post Magazine, has dedicated his life to spreading Mongolian culture around the world. To achieve this mission, he has used his own artworks (ritual masks, traditional costumes) and ideas (building a World Peace Pagoda in both Mongolia and the Shenandoah area) as teaching tools. But in “Genghis Khan: Bring the Legend to Life,” Mongolia’s biggest — and boldest — name helps spread the word as well.
“Through our show, many people learn about Mongolian culture and will have the right understanding about Genghis Khan and the 13th-century,” he said. “Many school kids have also seen our exhibition, and it opened them to world history the true way.”
The show debuted at the Houston Museum of Natural Science in 2009 and has since appeared at a variety of museums in the United States, Asia and Canada. The six-part exhibit covers topics including the conqueror’s childhood, his rise to power and Mongolia today.
To illustrate these events, a team of experts, including Ganna and organizer Don Lessem, selected more than 250 items from private and public collections. The Mongol Empire pieces go back as far as 5,000 years and include weapons (a major get: a sword supposedly carried by one of Marco Polo’s guards), clothing, jade, ceramics and religious artifacts. They also juiced up the experience with videos and family activities, interactive games that allow visitors to impersonate a spy, a princess or a soldier of the period.
“There are many interesting facts that we found and that people can see in our exhibition,” said Ganna. They include the Mongols’ first use of paper money, their pony postal system and the DNA discovery that more than 16 million people today can call the emperor uncle, cousin or great-great-great-etc.-granddad.
Ganna has played a significant role in the planning from the outset, organizing cultural events tied to the exhibit, inviting Mongolian artists to perform and even dancing with his children, and building a wooden horse and warrior and a statue of GK in his studio in the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar.
“Because Mongolia has a wonderful history of arts, we could make a wonderful exhibition of Genghis Khan,” he said. “It is a good lesson for all of us.”