—Cooper Hewitt Takes on Music and Design With a Presentation of “HiFi Pursuit Listening Room Dream No. 3” Featuring Daily Music Sessions and Live Guest Operator Appearances—
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum will present the immersive sound installation “Devon Turnbull: HiFi Pursuit Listening Room Dream No. 3,” from Dec. 12 through July 19, 2026, featuring a large-scale, handmade audio system by multi-disciplinary artist Devon Turnbull. The opening of the listening room marks the museum’s kick off to a series of music, sound and design-oriented programming over the next months and is part of the “Art of Noise” exhibition, opening in full Feb. 13, 2026, and organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA).
Known under his creative pseudonym OJAS, Turnbull is a Brooklyn-based artist and audio engineer who handcrafts high-fidelity audio systems designed to envelop the listener in sound that is as rich in texture as it is in emotion.
“Created as a ‘shrine to music,’ this listening room series invites visitors to experience music in a space designed to slow down and reflect, bringing back the joy of experiencing and sharing music together,” Turnbull said. “My intention is to return to the kind of immersive listening we experienced when we were young, free from outside distractions. Presenting this work at Cooper Hewitt is especially meaningful to me, having grown up visiting the museum.”
The listening room features Turnbull’s custom-built speaker sculptures, designed to offer natural, realistic sound, along with seating by USM Modular Furniture and textiles by Kvadrat.
“HiFi Pursuit Listening Room Dream No. 3” is the third of Turnbull’s listening rooms, experiential sound installations that have garnered a following around the world since their first launch at Lisson Gallery in New York (2022) and later presentations in London (2023) and SFMOMA (2024), where “HiFi Pursuit Listening Room Dream No. 2” was last presented.
For this latest iteration for Cooper Hewitt, Turnbull created a custom design for the museum’s historic Carnegie Library space, making this the largest and most architecturally and acoustically integrated version to date. His installations have also appeared in public venues, including Public Records, the Nine Orchard Hotel, Patina Osaka and Supreme stores worldwide, and in private collections of leading musicians and producers.
“As part of ‘Art of Noise,’ Turnbull’s ‘HiFi Pursuit Listening Room Dream No. 3’ is an opportunity for visitors to have a rare and transformative dedicated listening experience and surrender to high fidelity and enveloping sound,” said Joseph Becker, curator of architecture and design at SFMOMA. “At Cooper Hewitt, Turnbull has taken inspiration from the incredible millwork in Andrew Carnegie’s library for the site-specific design of the custom speakers.”
The listening room will be programmed daily and activated throughout the run of the exhibition with either special live operator appearances or genre specific playlists. Turnbull, along with noted music collectors, archivists, audiophiles and musicians from the New York area and beyond, will operate the live sonic experiences Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Outside of the live operator appearances, visitors are invited to listen to playlists selected by Turnbull. This winter, the playlists will rotate daily with the following offerings: Mondays, classical; Tuesdays, genre mix; Wednesdays, ambient; Thursdays, genre mix; Fridays, jazz; Saturdays, genre mix; and Sundays, genre mix.
To preserve the quality of the listening experience, capacity will be limited. No special ticketing is required outside of general museum admission. More information on visiting the listening room is available on the museum’s website.
PUBLIC PROGRAM KICK OFF WITH JOHN SCHAEFER
Renowned radio host of WNYC’s “New Sounds” and “Soundcheck,” John Schaefer will be in conversation with Devon Turnbull Thursday, Dec. 18, at 6 p.m., kicking off a series of events and programming around the listening room and “Art of Noise” exhibition. Schaefer and Turnbull will first discuss their lifelong passion for music and work crafting listening experiences, followed by their operating the listening room with a selection of music inspired by Schaefer’s longtime radio show, “New Sounds.” Tickets are available on the museum’s website.
ABOUT DEVON TURNBULL
Turnbull handcrafts high-fidelity audio systems—monolithic works of functional sculpture that seek to express the natural and emotional essence of music. His work is the result of a lifelong dedication to experimentation, engineering and explorations in the audio underground.
His installations have appeared in museums and galleries such as SFMOMA, Cooper Hewitt and Lisson Gallery; public spaces including Public Records, the Nine Orchard Hotel, Patina Osaka and Supreme stores worldwide; as well as the private collections of some of the world’s top musicians and music producers. Through all these projects, Turnbull’s unwavering pursuit of sonic purity remains his defining hallmark.
ABOUT “ART OF NOISE”
Organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) and adapted to the history of the New York music scene for its East Coast presentation, “Art of Noise” will be on view at Cooper Hewitt Feb. 13, 2026, through July 19, 2026. From concert posters to record albums, phonographs to digital music players, handheld radios to sound systems, the exhibition takes visitors on an exploration of how design has transformed people’s relationship to music over the past 100 years.
On view across the museum’s entire third-floor gallery, the exhibition will feature more than 300 artworks drawn largely from the collections of Cooper Hewitt and SFMOMA, as well as unique sound environments designed by Stockholm-based studio teenage engineering and Turnbull.
ACCESSIBILITY
Cooper Hewitt is committed to the accessibility of its spaces and materials. All in-gallery videos will have sound descriptions. Image descriptions will be available on the exhibition’s accessibility webpage. Large-print labels, sound-dampening over-ear headphones and other sensory materials will be available for use in the galleries. More information about accessibility at Cooper Hewitt is available on the museum’s website.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
“Art of Noise” is organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
The exhibition is curated by Joseph Becker, curator of architecture and design at SFMOMA, with assistance from Divya Saraf, former curatorial assistant in architecture and design at SFMOMA. The New York presentation of “Art of Noise” is curated by Becker with assistance from Cynthia Trope, associate curator of product design and decorative arts at Cooper Hewitt.
SUPPORT
This exhibition is made possible by the August Heckscher Exhibition Fund, the Ehrenkranz Fund, the Barbara and Morton Mandel Design Gallery Endowment Fund, the Fisher Arts Impact Fund, and Jonathan Schroeder and Janet Borgerson.
In-kind support provided by Kvadrat Inc. and USM Modular Furniture.
ABOUT COOPER HEWITT, SMITHSONIAN DESIGN MUSEUM
Cooper Hewitt is America’s design museum. Inclusive, innovative and experimental, the museum’s dynamic exhibitions, education programs, master’s program, publications and online resources inspire, educate and empower people through design. An integral part of the Smithsonian Institution—the world’s largest museum, education and research complex—Cooper Hewitt is located on New York City’s Museum Mile in the landmarked Carnegie Mansion. Steward of one of the world’s most diverse and comprehensive design collections—over 215,000 objects that range from an ancient Egyptian faience cup dating to about 1100 BC to contemporary 3D-printed objects and digital code—Cooper Hewitt welcomes everyone to discover the importance of design and its power to change the world.
For more information, visit www.cooperhewitt.org or follow @cooperhewitt on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.
ABOUT THE SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF MODERN ART
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is one of the largest museums of modern and contemporary art in the United States and a thriving cultural center for the Bay Area. The museum’s remarkable collection of painting, sculpture, photography, architecture, design and media arts is housed in a LEED Gold-certified building designed by the global architects Snøhetta and Mario Botta. In addition to seven gallery floors, SFMOMA now offers over 45,000 square feet of free, art-filled public space open to all.
