A brighter future: How do we get there?
A new Smithsonian exhibit challenges visitors to draw on their own inspiration and creativity to imagine a better world.
The interactive artwork "me + you" is part of the Smithsonian exhibition "Futures" in Washington, D.C.
AP/File
To quote baseball philosopher Yogi Berra, “The future ain’t what it used to be.”
It can be a challenge these days not to make long mental worry lists about what might lie ahead. But a more productive mindset might ask: What should the future be like? How do we make it better than today? How do we make that happen?
In a winter of international and domestic U.S. tensions, a new exhibition titled “Futures” at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington invites visitors to explore intriguing exhibits showing future possibilities. It then asks them to join in creating that future, such as in designing a city of tomorrow (with an assist from some artificial intelligence).
The exhibit has taken over the Smithsonian’s venerable Arts and Industries Building (AIB), which had been shuttered nearly two decades for repairs. At one time it housed treasures such as the Wright brothers’ airplane, the original “Star-Spangled Banner,” and the Apollo 11 command module used as part of the first moon landing. All were relocated to other Smithsonian venues long ago.
Imagining future possibilities can fire up visions of a better society. What about a ground-based, 600-mph tube transit system that could transport travelers between American cities in minutes? That’s just one possibility presented.
Calls for exhibits to include in “Futures” brought eager replies.
“Everybody wanted to be part of this exhibition because there’s a real hunger on the part of artists, designers, and scientists to be part of a narrative that allows people to imagine the future they want and not the future they fear,” Rachel Goslins, director of the AIB, told The Guardian. “To be part of an exhibition that came from a place of hopefulness about the future was attractive.”
“Futures” will run through July 6, 2022.
Change alone doesn’t always represent progress. The exhibit reminds us that inventions that at one time showed great promise, such as plastics, now may be seen as mixed blessings (plastic pollution).
Trying to predict what lies ahead is a notoriously futile business. But imagining possibilities can lead thinking into fresh, innovative channels.
“What we want people to take away is that there are solutions out there, there are answers out there,” Ms. Goslins says. “We have to pick them, and we have to invest in them.”
Last year the Smithsonian celebrated its 175th year. “Futures” is a reminder “that the best museums are as much about today and tomorrow as they are about yesterday,” writes Lonnie G. Bunch III, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, in its magazine.
As 2022 unfolds, inspiration and creativity are needed more than ever. Finding innovative answers isn’t mysterious: It’s mostly accomplished through hard work, as Thomas Edison and others have pointed out.
New ideas are available to any of us as we stop and quietly listen for our own best thoughts.