Click here to subscribe FREE to Ray Hanania's Columns
Obama Foundation Announces Hope and Change Lobby Naming at Presidential Center in Honor of President Obama’s 2008 Campaign
The Obama Foundation today announced the Hope and Change Lobby at the Obama Presidential Center, honoring the foundational ideas of President Obama’s 2008 campaign.
The Hope and Change Lobby is made possible through the generous contribution by the Hutchins Family Foundation, founded by investor, philanthropist, and Obama Foundation Board Vice-Chair Glenn Hutchins and his wife, Debbie Hutchins.
The Lobby, which guests can visit outside the ticketed Museum spaces, joins other spaces celebrating civic action alongside spaces named for leaders and changemakers whose work inspires people to move from hope to action, spaces made possible through generous gifts from Foundation benefactors.
“When visitors enter the Hope and Change Lobby, we hope they will feel what we did during President Obama’s historic 2008 campaign — that change is not only possible but achievable,” said Valerie Jarrett, CEO at The Obama Foundation.
“As they experience these spaces around the Center’s campus, we want them to be inspired to embrace their own power and know that they too can make history.”
The Hope and Change Lobby names and embodies core concepts at the heart of the Obama Presidential Center—a belief that every day people can create extraordinary change. Woven throughout the exhibits, programming, and campus, the Center aims to engage and inspire visitors to act in their own communities and bring change home. This mission is also reflected in the work of Hutchins Family Foundation, a private philanthropy established by Glenn and Debbie Hutchins to support the fields of economic opportunity, civic engagement, community development, and global humanitarian work.
“Debbie and I are very pleased to have been present at the creation of the Obama Presidential Center, an institution that for generations to come will embody the values powerfully distilled in the words ‘hope and change,’” said Glenn Hutchins, Vice-Chair of the Obama Foundation Board.
Located at the Museum’s sunlit, unticketed entrance, the Hope and Change Lobby is a three-story space connected by a sculptural bronze staircase, with floor-to-ceiling windows offering expansive views of the northern courtyard. The Lobby is also a singular place on campus to view a number of major arts installations, including:
This Land, Shared Sky, a multimedia textile installation between artists Nick Cave and Marie Watt. This work unites Indigenous and Black traditions through beaded nets and sculptural jingle elements. Watt has spent more than two decades creating works that bridge Indigenous history, culture, community, and memory.
Kiki Smith’s Receive, the largest of the artist’s bronze sculptures with moon and stars. In keeping with Smith’s previous work, Receive celebrates our shared connection to the cosmos, offering hope, orientation, and solace in the heart of the museum.
Njideka Akunyili Crosby’s work, the first portrait of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama created together, weaves archival imagery, family albums, historical ephemera, and cultural touchstones. This densely layered work honors and connects the Obamas’ lasting legacy to the many generations of artists, activists, citizens, and leaders whose collective journeys helped pave their way to the White House and sustained them through two terms.
Mark Bradford’s City of the Big Shoulders, a monumental painting scaling the 3-story west wall of the Our Story Atrium in the Museum Building, mapping Chicago through an embrace of fragmentation and perspective, collapsing landscape into memory and compressing history into a story of pressure, power, survival, and hope.
Jay Heikes’s Quintessence, a constellation of seven-pointed bronze stars installed along one of the Museum building’s exterior courtyard walls, reflects the complexity of American identity and invites contemplative engagement as sunlight moves across their textured surfaces.
Other notable named spaces around the Center include:
- Democracy 101 Exhibit, in honor of Timuel Black | With gratitude to Sacks Family Foundation
Elie Wiesel Auditorium | With gratitude to the Pritzker Traubert Family - Eleanor Roosevelt Fruit & Vegetable Garden | With gratitude to Connie Ballmer
- John W. Rogers, Jr. Exhibition Gallery, Working for the Common Good | With gratitude to Mellody Hobson and George Lucas
- Imagine Your Impact, in honor of Mae Jemison | With gratitude to Exelon Corporation
- Harold Washington Overlook | With gratitude to Fred Eychaner and the Alphawood Foundation
- Nancy Pelosi Garden Pavilion | With gratitude to Ron Conway Family.
The Obama Presidential Center opens to the public on June 19, 2026. These named spaces will serve as lasting tributes to the giants of history, reminding every visitor that they, too, have the power to leave a lasting mark on the world.
About The Obama Foundation
The Obama Foundation is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization with a mission to inspire, empower, and connect people to change their world. That mission begins on the South Side of Chicago, where the Foundation is building the Obama Presidential Center. The Obama Presidential Center represents a historic opportunity for Chicago: a chance to build a world-class museum and public gathering space that celebrates our nation’s first African American President and First Lady, steps away from where he began his career, where she was raised, and where—together—they made their home. Not only will the Center generate billions of dollars of economic opportunity and help reconnect and revitalize Jackson Park, it will also serve as a reminder to young visitors—from around the city and from around the world—that their potential is limitless.
Click here to subscribe FREE to Ray Hanania's Columns
His award winning columns can be found at www.HANANIA.COM Subscribe FREE today
Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.
Email Ray Hanania at [email protected].
Follow RayHanania at Twitter
