The Obama Presidential Center Museum in Chicago’s Jackson Park is set to open to the public on Juneteenth 2026. The museum will occupy four exhibition levels across nearly 35,000 square feet and will present the story of President and Mrs. Obama, described in the exhibition material as America’s first Black president and First Lady. Its narrative is organized around history, democracy, public service and the capacity of people to create change.
According to the exhibition description, visitors will move through four major levels: Toward a More Perfect Union, Working for the Common Good, The People’s House and We the People. Together, the galleries trace the country’s founding ideals and unfinished work, the people, movements, policies, challenges and accomplishments associated with the Obama presidency, and civic questions facing the present and future. The museum uses artifacts, large-scale and immersive media, storytelling, and hands-on digital and analog interactives to connect history with action. Ralph Appelbaum Associates and batwin + robin Productions are credited in the exhibition description.
Immersive media and campaign history
Among the highlighted experiences is Power of Words, an 88-foot-tall media canvas combining speech, sound, image, poetry and art. The installation is intended to show how words can inspire action and move people toward change. The opening gallery, Toward a More Perfect Union, is described as an illuminated, prismatic space 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 circular gallery uses a panoramic media installation with volunteer voices and crowd-sourced campaign objects to place visitors inside the grassroots movement of 2008. Elsewhere, Democracy 101 is a hands-on civics exhibit designed to help visitors understand how democracy works through interactive experiences intended to build knowledge, confidence and participation.
Inside the presidency and the People’s House
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. At a smaller scale, 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. A collection of Life in the White House artifacts includes fashion, state gifts and sports memorabilia, presenting how the Obamas sought to make the White House open, inclusive, personal and reflective of American diversity and vibrancy while upholding and expanding traditions.
Participation, art and access
Imagine Your Impact is a recurring interactive thread across all museum levels. It culminates in a shared media experience with a large-scale digital art commission that invites visitors to consider how individual actions can combine into collective change. Contemporary artwork is woven throughout the museum. In addition to Norman Teague’s custom-designed benches, commissioned works by Jeffrey Gibson, Jules Julien and María Magdalena Campos-Pons bring layered visual expressions of identity and hope into the visitor experience.
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 museum frames the Obamas’ journey within a wider 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 through-line is a story about possibility: what can happen when ordinary people organize, participate, lead, listen and act in common purpose. Visitors are meant to leave with a deeper understanding of the Obamas’ legacy and a renewed sense of their own agency in the ongoing work of democracy.