The Obama Presidential Center Museum in Chicago’s Jackson Park has a public opening date of Juneteenth 2026 and four exhibition levels across nearly 35,000 square feet. Its subject is the story of President and Mrs. Obama, America’s first Black president and First Lady, framed through history, democracy, public service and the capacity of people to create change.
Ralph Appelbaum Associates and batwin + robin Productions are credited on the exhibition project. Across the four levels, visitors are invited to consider the promise and complexity of American democracy, the experiences that shaped the Obamas, the work of the Obama presidency and the shared responsibility of building what the museum calls a more perfect union.
Four connected exhibition levels
The visitor route is organized around four major exhibition levels: Toward a More Perfect Union; Working for the Common Good; The People’s House; and We the People. The sequence begins with the nation’s founding ideals and unfinished work, moves through the people, movements, policies, challenges and accomplishments associated with the Obama presidency, and ends with civic questions facing the present and future.
The museum uses artifacts, large-scale and immersive media, storytelling, and hands-on digital and analog interactives. Its approach presents democracy as a living practice shaped by ordinary people working together rather than as a static system.
Scale and spectacle
Power of Words is an 88-foot-tall media canvas combining speech, sound, image, poetry and art. It is designed to show how words can inspire action and move people toward change. Toward a More Perfect Union is an illuminated, prismatic opening gallery that links the nation’s founding ideals and contradictions with the people and movements that have pushed American democracy toward greater justice and inclusion.
The Yes We Can Campaign gallery is circular and features a panoramic media installation with volunteer voices alongside crowd-sourced campaign objects. The display places visitors inside the grassroots movement of 2008. Democracy 101 offers a hands-on civics exhibit intended to help visitors understand how democracy works through approachable, interactive experiences that build knowledge, confidence and participation.
Inside the presidency and the White House
Panorama of a Presidency is a media room that surrounds visitors with behind-the-scenes views of the activities and places that make up the daily work of the presidency. Detailed miniature White House rooms provide a smaller-scale, playful and intimate look at how the Obamas opened the People’s House through traditions, celebrations, performances and public programs.
Life in the White House Artifacts brings together fashion, state gifts and sports memorabilia. The collection is presented as a way to show how the Obamas made the White House feel open, inclusive, personal and reflective of American diversity and vibrancy while seeking to uphold and expand a range of traditions.
Participation, art and access
Imagine Your Impact is a recurring interactive thread across all levels of the museum, culminating in a shared media experience and a large-scale digital art commission. The experience invites visitors to see how individual actions can join together to create collective change. Contemporary artwork is woven throughout the museum, including Norman Teague’s custom-designed benches and commissioned works by artists Jeffrey Gibson, Jules Julien and María Magdalena Campos-Pons.
Inclusive design is treated as foundational. The museum is intended to support visitors of all ages and abilities through tactile stations and replicas, captioning, ASL interpretation, audio description, assistive listening, clear wayfinding and interactive opportunities for participation.
The narrative is rooted in Chicago’s South Side and connected to national and global movements for justice, including participants in the Obama Foundation’s Global Programs. The museum places the Obamas’ journey within a broader civic story about what becomes possible when ordinary people organize, participate, lead, listen and act in common purpose.