Past Exhibitions | Smithsonian Institution

To Live and Breathe: Women and Environmental Justice in Washington, D.C.

Explore how women of color draw on a long history of activism and advance environmental justice efforts.

May 19, 2023 – January 7, 2024

The Utopia Project

This interactive gallery is a space to learn the art of activism and to unlock the creativity in each of us to transform our world.

November 1, 2022 – March 1, 2023

Anacostia Community Museum

Food for the People: Eating and Activism in Greater Washington

Take a deep dive into the food issues of the nation’s capital—past and present—with this outdoor and indoor exhibition featuring artifacts, art installations, videos, and hands-on interactives.

April 17, 2021 – September 17, 2022

Anacostia Community Museum

Men of Change: Taking it to the Streets

Men of Change presents a nation’s story through the profiles of revolutionary African American men.

February 1, 2021 – August 31, 2021

Anacostia Community Museum

A Right to the City

A Right to the City explores the history of neighborhood change in the nation’s capital.

April 21, 2018 – October 1, 2020

Anacostia Community Museum

Your Community, Your Story: Celebrating Five Decades of the Anacostia Community Museum, 1967-2017

Your Community, Your Story highlights some of the museum’s signature projects and demonstrates how ACM’s work helps us understand city life and strengthen community bonds.

September 15, 2017 – January 6, 2019

Anacostia Community Museum

Bridging the Americas: Community and Belonging from Panama to Washington, D.C.

This exhibition highlights major themes that link the U.S. and Panama and the makings of community.

April 13, 2015 – June 12, 2018

Anacostia Community Museum

This exhibition explores the experiences of Latino migrants and immigrants in four U.S. metro areas: Washington DC, Baltimore, MD; Charlotte, NC; and Raleigh-Durham, NC. Explora las experiencias de migrantes e inmigrantes latinos en Estados Unidos.

December 5, 2016 – January 7, 2018

Anacostia Community Museum

From the Regenia Perry Collection: The Backyard of Derek Webster's Imagination

This exhibition of nine pieces created by Derek Webster between 1980–1996 is from the Regenia A. Perry Folk Art Collection, part of the Anacostia Community Museum’s folk art collection.

October 17, 2016 – July 9, 2017

Anacostia Community Museum

Twelve Years that Shook and Shaped Washington: 1963-1975

Between 1963 and 1975, national and local change transformed the nation’s capital, Washington, DC. On display are photos, paintings, recordings, period clothing, and artifacts, such as a pen used to sign the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

December 14, 2015 – October 23, 2016

Anacostia Community Museum

From the Permanent Collection: Artists of the Spiral Collective, 1963-1965

From 1963 to 1965, Spiral, a diverse group of African American artists, met weekly to discuss the role of artists in the Civil Rights Movement and the relationship of aesthetics and political expression.

January 18, 2016 – September 25, 2016

Anacostia Community Museum

Hand of Freedom: The Life and Legacy of the Plummer Family

This exhibit looks at the life and legacy of the Plummer family in Prince Georges County, Maryland, in the 19th century.

February 23, 2015 – December 27, 2015

Anacostia Community Museum

How the Civil War Changed Washington

This exhibition examines the social and spatial impact of the Civil War on Washington, DC, and the resulting dramatic changes in social mores, and in the size and ethnic composition of the city’s population.

February 2, 2015 – November 15, 2015

Anacostia Community Museum

Separate and Unequaled: Black Baseball in the District of Columbia

This exhibition provides an overview of the popularity of African American baseball teams played on segregated fields in Washington, DC, from Reconstruction to the second half of the 20th century.

November 10, 2008 – March 31, 2015

Anacostia Community Museum

Home Sewn: Quilts from the Lower Mississippi Valley

Through the lens of four fancy quilts, explore layers of family history, artistic traditions, and entrepreneurship that enrich the fabric of an African American community in rural Mississippi.

December 9, 2013 – February 1, 2015

Anacostia Community Museum

Ubuhle Women: Beadwork and the Art of Independence

Learn about a new form of bead art and how Ubuhle women transform the beadwork surface into a contemporary work of art.

December 9, 2013 – January 4, 2015

Anacostia Community Museum

Reclaiming the Edge: Urban Waterways and Civic Engagement

Explore how urban waterways, such as the Anacostia River, can be both barriers and economic resources for the community.

October 15, 2012 – November 3, 2013

Anacostia Community Museum

Artuaré and Conversations in the Contemporary

See installations created by artist Steven Cumming and multimedia production studio CreativeJunkfood that are influenced by cultural expression found in schools, churches, community organizations, and other venues in the public sphere.

December 12, 2011 – April 29, 2012

Anacostia Community Museum

Exercise Your Mynd

See BK Adams's imaginary landscapes that draw upon his surroundings, using exuberant color, toys, and objects scavenged from everyday life.

August 22, 2011 – November 27, 2011

Anacostia Community Museum

Word, Shout, Song: Lorenzo Dow Turner - Connecting Communities through Language

Learn how the Gullah people of Georgia and South Carolina have retained traces of their West African culture and language that their enslaved ancestors brought to the Americas.

August 9, 2010 – July 24, 2011

Anacostia Community Museum

The African Presence in Mexico: From Yanga to the Present

Look at the history, culture, and art of Afro-Mexicans, beginning in the colonial era and continuing to present day in this traveling exhibition.

November 8, 2009 – July 4, 2010

Anacostia Community Museum

Jubilee: African American Celebration

Through images of captured moments from throughout the years, look at the history, traditional music, and regional folklore of African American holidays and celebrations around the country from the 18th century to the present.

December 7, 2008 – September 20, 2009

Anacostia Community Museum

East of the River: Continuity and Change

Continuity and change are underlying themes in the history of communities east of the Anacostia River in Washington, DC, from Native American settlements to the present.

September 15, 2007 – November 9, 2008

Anacostia Community Museum

Separate and Unequaled: Black Baseball in the District of Columbia

After the Civil War, baseball became America’s pastime. Largely integrated, it was a unifying force in a nation grappling with a divided racial history. Yet, in the nation’s capital, the game remained segregated until 1944.

May 18, 2008 – October 5, 2008

Anacostia Community Museum

Voices & Visions of Tha Bloc: An Exhibition by Ellis L. Marsalis III

Through poetry, essays, and 31 photographs developed over the past decade, photographer/poet Ellis Marsalis III details the lives of neighbors living on one block in Baltimore City.

June 10, 2007 – August 12, 2007

Anacostia Community Museum