Edmund de Waal specializes in connecting cultures across time, but using unorthodox mediums—porcelain and poetry. De Waal is a master ceramicist. He’s also an accomplished writer who won recognition for his 2010 book, The Hare with Amber Eyes, which traced his Jewish ancestors through their collection of Japanese netsuke (small carvings). Since then, de Waal has created installations that see his porcelain vessels and various texts arranged into historical reveries and ineffable states of being. This exhibition at the Huntington is divided into three spaces: “on sanctuary” focuses on poets in exile; “on porcelain” traces the history of porcelain across continents; and “on shadows” is a pavilion meant for contemplation and reflection. As the museum’s director Christina Nielsen says, de Waal’s work offers “meditations on beauty, displacement, and the fragility of culture.” —Alice Browne