The Obama Presidential Center Museum in Chicago’s Jackson Park is set to open to the public on Juneteenth 2026, with four levels of exhibits spanning nearly 35,000 square feet. The museum will present the story of President and Mrs. Obama, America’s first Black president and First Lady, through a narrative focused on history, democracy, public service and the power of people to create change.
The visitor journey 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. Together, the galleries trace the nation’s founding ideals and unfinished work, the people and movements that shaped the Obama presidency, and the civic questions facing today and tomorrow. The museum uses artifacts, large-scale and immersive media, storytelling, and hands-on digital and analog interactives to frame democracy as a living practice shaped by ordinary people working together.
Immersive media and campaign history
Among the featured spaces is Power of Words, an 88-foot-tall media canvas that combines speech, sound, image, poetry and art to show how words can inspire action. The opening gallery, Toward a More Perfect Union, is described as an illuminated, prismatic space 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 centers on a panoramic media installation with volunteer voices and crowd-sourced campaign objects, placing visitors inside the grassroots movement of 2008. Nearby, Democracy 101 offers a hands-on civics exhibit designed to help visitors explore how democracy works through approachable, interactive experiences intended to build knowledge, confidence and participation.
Inside the presidency and the People’s House
Panorama of a Presidency is a sweeping 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. On 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.
Life in the White House Artifacts brings together fashion, state gifts and sports memorabilia. According to the museum, these objects reveal how the Obamas made the White House feel open, inclusive, personal and reflective of America’s diversity and vibrancy as they sought to uphold and expand a range of traditions.
Participation, art and accessible design
Imagine Your Impact is a recurring interactive thread across all levels of the museum. It culminates in a shared media experience featuring a large-scale digital art commission that invites visitors to see how individual actions can join together to create collective change.
Contemporary artwork is woven throughout the museum. Alongside 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 experience.
Inclusive design is a foundational part of the project. The museum is designed to support visitors of all ages and abilities, integrating tactile stations and replicas, captioning, ASL interpretation, audio description, assistive listening, clear wayfinding and interactive opportunities for participation.
At its heart, the museum frames the Obamas’ journey within a broader American civic narrative rooted in the South Side of Chicago and shaped by national and global movements for justice. It also points to the work carried forward by people making change in their communities, including participants in the Obama Foundation’s Global Programs. Visitors are intended 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.