National Museum of the Aftermath

Los Angeles, CA (in collaboration within OXY Arts)

June 8 - August 8, 2026

Tuesday - Saturday, 11am - 4pm and open evenings for select events

Throughout summer 2026, the National Museum of the Aftermath is operating within OXY ARTS. This speculative museum, conceived and titled by Cauleen Smith and curated by Jon Rubin and Harrison Kinnane Smith, is the most recent iteration of Rubin's National Museum. The ongoing project moves between cities, changing its name and form with each iteration, critically asking which histories and futures are deemed worth telling and which are ignored or forgotten.

The National Museum of the Aftermath positions the present as post-historical, asking: "In the wake of the uncountable endings our history contains, how do we build resistant relationships to the permanence of racism?"

This summer, the Museum will periodically operate as a sound stage for the artist Cauleen Smith, who will film three scenes hovering between the real and speculative. Each stages the internal negotiations of collective struggle — the gatherings, disagreements, and nuances of people trying to build something together within and alongside what remains. The material traces and video documentation of these private performances will be on view for the public during the gallery's regular open hours and provide the context for a series of public gatherings. These will include a film series, reading group, and an open call to individuals and organizations motivated to confront the proposition that we are already living in an aftermath.

By opening the gallery to a multiplicity of uses, the Museum seeks to challenge the conventions of its form — rather than a space to be filled with artifacts and objects, it has become a place for research, performance, and shared thought. This is also an act of para-institutional nesting: OXY ARTS operating semi-independently within Occidental College; The National Museum hovering between speculative institution and artist project; and inside all of that, Cauleen Smith's National Museum of the Aftermath — an artist project within a fictional museum within an arts space within a college.

The open call for proposals, and schedule for the film screenings and reading group will be announced soon. Join the National Museum of the Aftermath mailing list to receive updates.

Lead Artist: Cauleen Smith

Host Organization: OXY ARTS

Writer: Regina Freer

Curators: Harrison Kinnane Smith and Jon Rubin

National Museum Founder and Organizer: Jon Rubin

Designer and Sign Painter: Nick Caruso