The Obama Presidential Center Museum is scheduled to open to the public on Juneteenth 2026 in Chicago’s Jackson Park. The exhibition project is credited to Ralph Appelbaum Associates and batwin + robin Productions, and it will occupy four exhibition levels across nearly 35,000 square feet. It presents the story of President and Mrs. Obama, America’s first Black president and First Lady, through history, democracy, public service and the power of people to create change.
Visitors will move through four major exhibition levels: Toward a More Perfect Union, Working for the Common Good, The People’s House and We the People. Together, the galleries are intended to connect the nation’s founding ideals and unfinished work with the people, movements, policies, challenges and accomplishments that shaped the Obama presidency, before turning to civic questions of today and tomorrow. The museum combines artifacts, large-scale and immersive media, storytelling and hands-on digital and analog interactives.
Immersive media and campaign history
Among the highlighted exhibits is Power of Words, described as an 88-foot-tall media canvas of speech, sound, image, poetry and art. The installation is designed to show how words can inspire action and move people toward change. Toward a More Perfect Union serves as the illuminated, prismatic opening gallery, linking the nation’s founding ideals and contradictions to the people and movements that have pushed American democracy toward greater justice and inclusion.
The Yes We Can Campaign circular gallery features a panoramic media installation with volunteer voices and crowd-sourced campaign objects, placing visitors inside the grassroots movement of 2008. Democracy 101 is a hands-on civics exhibit that explores how democracy works through interactive experiences intended to build knowledge, confidence and participation.
Presidency, artifacts and participation
Panorama of a Presidency is a media room that surrounds visitors with a behind-the-scenes view of the activities and places that make up the daily work of the presidency. Detailed miniature White House rooms offer an intimate look at how the Obamas opened the People’s House through traditions, celebrations, performances and public programs. Life in the White House Artifacts includes fashion, state gifts and sports memorabilia, presented as a way to show how the Obamas made the White House feel open, inclusive, personal and reflective of America’s diversity and vibrancy while upholding and expanding traditions.
Imagine Your Impact runs as a recurring interactive thread across all levels and culminates in a shared media experience with a large-scale digital art commission. It invites visitors to consider how individual actions can combine to create collective change. Contemporary artwork is also woven through the museum: Norman Teague designed custom benches, and commissioned works by Jeffrey Gibson, Jules Julien and María Magdalena Campos-Pons bring expressions of identity and hope into the experience.
Accessibility and civic narrative
Inclusive design is described 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 exhibits place President and Mrs. Obama’s journey within a broader American civic narrative rooted in Chicago’s South Side, shaped by national and global movements for justice and carried forward by people working in their communities, including participants in the Obama Foundation’s Global Programs. The museum’s stated aim is for visitors to leave with a deeper understanding of the Obamas’ legacy and a renewed sense of their own agency in the ongoing work of democracy at home and abroad.