A Call for Better Futures: Lessons from The Smithsonian’s FUTURES exhibit
Last December, I visited the Smithsonian Arts + Industries Building FUTURES exhibit, eager to experience what a dedicated museum exhibit on futures might look and feel like. For nearly two decades, my teaching, writing, and designed events have focused on helping people see the future as something they can influence and shape. I was particularly excited to experience the exhibit with my colleagues from the d.school’s K12 Lab, who share my passion for bringing futures mindsets and practices to all ages, starting with our youngest learners.
While the field of futures is not new, the scope, depth, and ambition of the Smithsonian AIB exhibit, designed in collaboration with Arizona State University’s Center for Science & Imagination, Institute for the Future, X’s Moonshot Factory, and dozens of multicultural artists, is an important ‘futures’ signal in and of itself. As the world’s largest museum, education and research complex, the Smithsonian’s overall vision comes alive in this exhibit — to “engage and inspire more people where they are, with greater impact, while catalyzing critical conversation on issues affecting our nation and the world.”
The timing of Smithsonian’s investment in an ambitious 32,000 sq. foot interactive display of FUTURES is also significant. For the last two years, the urgency of the immediate has relentlessly pulled all of our attention. This exhibit reminds us that we must create time for expansive, imaginative, future-forward conversations about the type of world and society we want to live in, and what we hope to leave for our children.
FUTURES emphasizes the idea that the future or, more accurately, “futures” are up to us.
We can — and must be — the dreamers, the inventors, the artists, the creators, the pioneers, the shapers of our own tomorrows.
The future isn’t some magical force that will descend on us, nor should it be designed by a chosen few. The future should be open for all of us to imagine — and build — together. It is, and we can.
The curator’s welcome sets the stage for the visitor’s experience:
“Here in the Smithsonian’s Arts + Industries Building you’ll find many visions of the future. Futures that unite. Futures that inspire. Futures that work. It’s an exhibition about the kinds of future we might want, and what decisions, individual and collective, can help us get there.”
It might be easy to imagine a futures exhibit at this scale to be just a Jetsons-like technotopia filled with shiny gadgets, space suits and flying cars (although there is a prototype flying taxi!). Instead, the creators of the FUTURES exhibit masterfully curate an interactive experience of different “Speculative Halls” organized around core human values: Futures that Work, Futures that Unite, and Futures that Inspire.
As we make our way to the Speculative Halls, the opening entrance of “Futures Past” remind us that futures, no matter how fantastical, are rarely neutral: promises for some may result in nightmares for others. There is responsibility associated with dreams and decisions about the future: “Shaping the future is complicated. We need to ask: Who benefits? Who is left out? Who gets to choose?”
The Futures that Work hall invites us to think about how new technologies might change our everyday living experiences, such as Virgin’s Hyperloop high speed transportation system, or 3D printed foods from freely available molecule sources. The Futures that Unite hall explores how freely available technology and tools might pave the way for democratized discoveries and inclusive inventions, such as a genderless voice bot or breakthroughs in DNA that might allow for babies to biologically share same-sex parents. And the Futures that Inspire hall reminds us that our human capacity to play, imagine and dream may be the most resilient strategies to the increasing challenges of our time. “Every dream is a map. In these soaring historic halls, we invite you to find ideas that help you imagine a more equitable, exciting, and sustainable world.”
At the nexus of these halls sits an awe-inspiring light sculpture installation by the artist Suchi Reddy. Visitors are invited to share a word for the future that is met with an AI empowered illuminated response. Titled, me+you, the museum’s centerpiece embodies its curation credo of how technology and art can amplify individual contributions to something even more magical.
Philosophical quotes from artists, musicians, inventors, authors, scientists and movement makers line the walls of each exhibit hall. Reading them, I was reminded that the power to imagine new futures sits within the frames of how we see the world.
We can’t imagine or build a better future without taking into account our own lens, our own experiences, and our own voice.
Singer-songwriter Dolly Parton invites museum visitors to join her in shaping the future, “Take my hand and run with me out of the past called yesterday, and walk with me into the future of tomorrow.” During the pandemic, Dolly Parton’s metaphorical “hand” has included millions of dollars to support a Covid vaccine. She’s not just singing about the future, she’s paving the way for all of our futures.
Poet laureate Amanda Gorman calls for more courageous engagement in building our civic futures: “The new dawn blooms as we free it/For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it/If only we’re brave enough to be it.”
And inventor Jonas Salk’s prophetic guidance reminds us to anchor ourselves in generational justice and sustainability. “The most important question we must ask ourselves is, are we being good ancestors?” What will future generations say about the choices we’re making now?
As my colleagues and I reached the end of the FUTURES exhibit, we were confronted by the collective call to action that encapsulates the work we seek to achieve.
“Everyone has a role to play in building the future.
In the next year, I will….
In the next month, I will….
In the next day, I will…”
The prompts are so simple, and yet so profound.
None of us is exempt from shaping the future.
How can we help more schools and organizations make space for imagination and play as pathways to promoting more empathy, resilience, connection, and care, and ultimately, more abundant futures for more people?
How can we bring a more futures-focused mindset to more, and younger, students — empowering them from the beginning to understand their role, and equipping them with the skills and imagination they’ll need to not just inherit the future, but become it?
How can we resolve to be better ancestors for generations to come, starting with the commitments we make today?
We can’t expect better futures to just unfold without supporting and growing the capacity to shape it towards more positive directions.
As the poet Emily Dickinson reminds us, “Forever is composed of nows.”
The Smithsonian has given us a starter kit on how to get started building better futures. Time to start now.
Smithsonian’s Arts + Industries FUTURES is on display until July 2022.
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Special thanks to Ruth Wylie from ASU’s Center for Science and Imagination and the curators of FUTURES who hosted my wonderful K12 Lab colleagues Laura McBain, Louie Montoya, Morgan Vien and me for the visit.
Coming soon: Ideas on how to bring inspiration from THE FUTURES to your classrooms, teams, or community!
