Public Programs

Join multidisciplinary artist Devon Turnbull and renowned radio host and author John Schaefer for an evening conversation on music, their work crafting listening experiences, and Turnbull’s latest installation at Cooper Hewitt, HiFi Pursuit Listening Room Dream No. 3. The installation features a large scale, handmade, audio system designed to envelop the listener in sound that is as rich in texture as it is in emotion. After a short introductory talk, experience the listening room as Turnbull and Schaefer operate the sound system and play a selection of music inspired by Schaefer’s iconic radio show New Sounds. HiFi Pursuit Listening Room Dream No. 3 is part of the upcoming Art of Noise exhibition, opening in full February 13, 2026. View full event details here.

Explore this month’s featured exhibition at your own pace, with opportunities to discover, connect, and engage with the objects and ideas on display. View full event details here.

Join us for a studio visit with Melitta Baumeister, the Brooklyn-based fashion design brand and winner of the 2025 National Design Award for Fashion Design. Melitta Baumeister is known for their expressively unique wearable garments that reject trends, body standards, and beauty ideals. Based on a futuristic, minimalist aesthetic, the brand’s clothing often exaggerates volume and creates sculptural silhouettes, using innovative techniques and materials to infuse the surprising, the mysterious, and the humorous of the everyday. Baumeister’s designs are intended to impact not only the wearer but also the space around them. During the visit, meet Melitta, her partner Michal Plata, and others from the studio’s team who will share the history of their interdisciplinary practice, tour their new studio, and take part in a short hands-on workshop applying the signature techniques of their work. View full event details here.

Join photographer Christopher Payne, former New York Times photography editor Kathy Ryan, and bestselling author Rachel Slade for a wide-ranging conversation around Payne’s Made in America project to document industrial manufacturing across the United States. Payne’s images show a startling diversity of companies, from a pencil factory and humanoid robot maker, to a lab that makes mirrors for astronomical telescopes. The panelists will discuss why Payne was drawn to documenting sites of industrial production in America, the importance of photography as a means of conveying the diversity of things made in the U.S and the skilled workers who make them, and the challenges and opportunities of onshoring industrial production in the 21st century. Matilda McQuaid will moderate this discussion.   View full event details here.

Explore this month’s featured exhibition at your own pace, with opportunities to discover, connect, and engage with the objects and ideas on display. View full event details here.