Imagined Futures Exhibition Opening and Community Open House

In honor of NLM’s latest exhibition, Imagined Futures, join us and enjoy pay-as-you-wish admission and engaging activities suitable for all ages, including an object sketching activity, seek-and-finds, sand art stations, and your own chance to write a message to your future self. Exploring themes of ecology, community, liberation, and self-determination, Imagined Futures brings together 10 artists from around the world to reflect on the futures that could be, and the selected work showcases how translating varying pasts into visions of the future can empower generations to act in the present. 

NLM’s Community Open House is proudly sponsored by

Meet the Artists: 

Agaba Solomon Peabo
Agaba Solomon Peabo is a self-taught multidisciplinary creative born and raised in Uganda. Agaba juxtaposes elements of reality with surrealism using digital art, a reverence for nature, and a love of the streets to produce Afro-futuristic and immersive photos of the Africa of his dreams. Agaba’s work has been featured and shown in several group exhibitions, such as Big Arts Exhibition, Florida (2022) curated by Wilson McCray.

Annie Blazejack and Geddes Levenson
Annie Blazejack and Geddes Levenson have been working together for over a decade and explore the relationship between humans and ecosystems through their work. Blazejack received her MFA from The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston / Tufts University, in 2013, while Levenson received her MFA from Pratt University in 2014.

Chau Nguyen
As a Vietnamese immigrant artist and educator based in Philadelphia, they draw from concepts of memory, translation, material transformation, Vietnamese historical archives, and the global supply chain to convey the complexity of postcolonial societies. Nguyen received their BA in Fine Arts and History of Art from Bryn Mawr College and their MFA in Painting from Tyler School of Art and Architecture. They were an artist-in-residence at Wassaic Project, Dear Artists, 77Art Center, and Chautauqua Art Institution.

Heather Ujiie
Heather Ujiie is an Interdisciplinary Associate Professor at Moore College of Art & Design in Philadelphia, and her textile installations and artwork have been exhibited nationally and internationally. Her work synthesizes several methods of artistry, including painting, drawing, stitching, fiber manipulation, and digital printing technology on fabric. She hopes her digitally printed textile installations ignite deep spiritual forays into the imagination and generate reflection on what is hidden, whether it be our own personal demons or lust for life.

Juan Jose Cielo
Juan Jose Cielo is a Colombian-American artist based in New York City who works in painting, photography, and short films. Through his work, he creates space where Latino myth/folklore are part of the visions of a futuristic world. Cielo graduated from The Cooper Union in New York, with studies at the École Nationale Supérieure Beaux-Arts in Paris. His work has been featured in galleries and exhibitions including The Coral Springs Museum of Art, the Consulate of Colombia in New York City, and The Alliance Française in Bogota.

Komikka Patton
Komikka Patton is a peripatetic 2D multimedia artist. Patton uses ink, paper, and various printmaking techniques to create works centrally based on the African Diasporan human condition; her large paper installations and collages touch futurism, transhumanism, mythology, and storytelling. She is the winner of a Darryl Chappell Foundation Grant, NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship Finalist, and the May and Samuel Rudin Foundation Scholarship. She obtained her BFA in Fine Arts from Columbus College of Art & Design and an MFA from New York University.

Owo Anietie
As a Nigerian digital artist, he defines the medium with his innovative take on Afrofuturism to create new narratives with technology-based work. Inspired by science fiction literature, Owo sees the core concept of Afrofuturism as people dreaming of a better life. Recognized as an established creative presence within the African NFT community and beyond it, Owo’s narrative-based conceptual work has defined his meteoric rise in the crypto art space.

Sāgar Kāmath
An interdisciplinary artist that creates work exploring his identity as an Indian-born American through painting, digital design, and dance. He draws inspiration from traditional South Asian forms and aesthetics to create joyous chaos––appropriating aspects of Indian folk, traditional, classical art & dance in contrast to his existence as a Western-based and raised artist. Sāgar is currently pursuing his MFA at the Maryland Institute College of Art.

Smaragda Nitsopoulou
A video artist, film director, and editor from Greece, she explores the themes of memory and death in the Anthropocene era. Her exhibition includes research-based artworks and the use of archival footage of the past to highlight the point of view of the future towards the past. She has participated in international festivals and art fairs such as Documenta 14, Video Art Miden & Simultan, and completed her first feature-length documentary, “Death Under Control,” in 2021.

Solarpunk Surf Club
Solarpunk Surf Club is an artist collective that creates and curates egalitarian platforms for surfing the waves of still-possible worlds. Their work politicize, historicize, and demystify a collective ecological, utopian future. Solarpunk Surf Club has presented projects internationally in galleries, museums, festivals, conferences, libraries, activist gatherings, and forest occupations. In 2022, the collective received the Future Art Award: ECOSYSTEM X from MOZAIK Philanthropy (Los Angeles) for their artist’s game, Solarpunk Futures.