Image: National Academy of Design, New York
The National Academy of Design is in the final stretch of 'Future Schools,' a three-part project that combines an exhibition, a live performance series, and a workshop-and-talk curriculum focused on alternative models for art education. The exhibition is on view through August 22, 2026, at the National Academy of Design, 519 West 26th Street, 2nd Floor, in New York.
According to the institution, 'Future Schools' draws on the National Academy of Design’s origins in 1825 as a self-organized, artist-founded school. The project was created in partnership with Büro Koray Duman Architects and is conceived as an active pedagogical environment, described by the Academy as part working classroom, part symposium space for public dialogue, and part archive of educational experiments past and present. The exhibition brochure is presented as a companion to the project.
The exhibition features new commissions by Ad Minoliti, Christian Nyampeta, and WAI Think Tank, the latter consisting of Cruz Garcia and Nathalie Frankowsky. It also includes a chalkboard drawing by Chloë Bass. The project brings together artists, educators, and cultural practitioners in a format intended to reimagine how learning happens inside an art institution.
A separate classroom program is being led by the School for Poetic Computation, which the Academy identifies as the third and final classroom resident activating the exhibition with its curriculum. The school describes itself as an experimental school in New York City and online, supporting interdisciplinary study in art, code, hardware, and critical theory. During its residency, students can engage themes including consent and surveillance, archival preservation and loss, embodied interfaces, collective authorship, and the maintenance labor that sustains digital systems.
The public schedule tied to 'Future Schools' includes free and ticketed events. On Saturday, August 1, Aarati Akkapeddi will give the free public talk 'Handmade Datasets' from 1:30 to 3:00 PM. A two-day workshop, 'Becoming Hypertext' with Chia Amisola and Kaloyan Kolev, is scheduled for Friday, August 7, and Saturday, August 8, with sessions from 1:00 to 6:00 PM on the first day and 1:00 to 4:00 PM on the second. Another workshop, 'Double Tap, Long Press' with Ahana Ganguly and Sydney Haas, is set for Saturday, August 15, from 1:00 to 5:00 PM.
The exhibition also includes open computer lab hours every Tuesday from June 23 through August 11, from 12:00 to 6:00 PM, with no registration necessary. A culminating exhibition is planned for Thursday, August 20 through Saturday, August 22, from 12:00 to 6:00 PM. The Academy lists the project as curated by Natalia Viera Salgado, Associate Curator, and Nato Thompson, Guest Curator, with programmatic support from Frank Dallas, Programs Manager.
