The Museum of the Future
Now booking for 2024 and Beyond
THE MUSEUM OF THE FUTURE:
"I dream of a world beyond the white avant-garde, way beyond the Western Canon, a supernova of possibilities.
I dream of museums and theaters as a network or constellation of spaces that work in close communication to better the field - including wrestling with colonial demons and white supremacist practices."
—Guillermo Gómez-Peña, An Open Letter to the Museums of the Future
On February 3, 2021, Gómez-Peña presented a performance keynote and call to action titled: An Open Letter to the Museums of the Future. The project was part of a long term collaboration between the Public Media Institute for Toward Common Cause: Art, Social Change, and the MacArthur Fellows Program at 40 and the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum (Chicago).
As an insider/outsider artist, Gómez-Peña has had an obsession with rewriting and re-staging so-called “Western Art History” while highlighting colonial legacies of systematic exclusion, demonization and fetishization of women and BIPOC. This performance keynote (and now ongoing project) challenges contemporary art museum practices and calls for an open discussion regarding radical restructuring(s) from within.
In 2022, a new presentation of the open letter keynote was commissioned by the Tate Modern and premiered September 16th as part of Reshaping the Collectible an international convening and multi-year initiative supported by the Mellon Foundation. The keynote is available for viewing online here.
“I invite you dear foreigner in my performance country to dream with me and send me your own letters imagining a better art world or rather a myriad of art worlds, coexisting in synergy with nature, radical imagination, and community—you're surrounding multiple communities. Do you have ideas to propose for a museum of the future?”
—Guillermo Gómez-Peña, An Open Letter to the Museums of the Future
DO YOU HAVE A VISION FOR AN ARTIST & ACTIVIST LED MUSEUM OF THE FUTURE?
Gómez-Peña and La Pocha Nostra have a longstanding practice of questioning museum practices and this letter and ongoing project is part of that critical tradition.
We are very open to your ideas and interpretations of the project and welcome your proposals.
This ongoing project invites the public to share their own open letters and is a call for our most daring institutions and presenters to join our growing list of accomplices. The possibilities for presenting the work are diverse - including live performance keynotes (in-person and virtual), pedagogical workshops and more.
Interested presenters please contact project lead Emma Tramposch: pocha@pochanostra.com
We are also still collecting individual letters and responses about your vision for a museum of the future. Watch Gómez-Peña’s 2021 open letter here and add your voice by submitting this online form, emailing tomuseumsofthefuture@gmail.com, or leaving a message at 773-823-9700.
THE MUSEUM OF THE FUTURE IS:
- A conceptual institution & portal for radical imagination
- An ever growing, artist-driven forum for museum critique
- A call for our institutions to become a microcosm of possibilities
- A live performance or virtual address
- A traveling educational project
- A writing lab and pedagogical experiment in collective letter writing
- A call for response from our most daring institutions and funders
Our growing list of collaborators and accomplices:
La Pocha Nostra
Public Media Institute & Lumpen Radio, Chicago
The Jane Addams Hull House Museum, Chicago
The SMART Museum, Chicago
The MacArthur Foundation
The Portland Art Museum
The Tate Modern
Saint Joseph’s Art Society
Pacific University, Oregon
University Illinois, Chicago
500 Capp Street Foundation
The Momentary, Arkansas
Crystal Bridges, Arkansas
Co-Lab, Austin
California College of the Arts, San Francisco
Who will join us?
