EXHIBITIONS
Little Big Ideas
In 2025, as we created plans for bringing the Museum to life, we asked ourselves: what if a museum could work in a way that embodies the Palo Alto spirit — start small, iterate, grow, and contribute to positive change in the world? What if it didn’t arrive fully formed, but evolved by, with and for its community?
Palo Alto has always been where big ideas begin.
So we imagined seven Little Big Ideas: prototype exhibits, events, and experiences, each a modest “little” version designed to show what might become possible. Not finished products. Living experiments in what a museum can be.
Then we invited community members to add their ideas. Every experience here has been shaped by input from hundreds of people, and we’re still listening. What you share keeps moving this forward.
The seven experiences — and growing:
- Museum in Your Pocket — Bite-sized Palo Alto stories and interactive content, right on your phone, anytime and anywhere
- I AM PALO ALTO — An interactive wall and growing digital collection celebrating the icons, unsung heroes, and everyday people who make this city what it is
- Imagine a World Without Palo Alto — Artifacts and stories exploring how Palo Alto’s ideas — from technology to social movements — changed the world
- The Life of Trees — Stories, science, art, and hands-on activities rooted in nature and environmental stewardship, from El Palo Alto to today
- From Hooves to Hollywood — Exhibit, film, talks, and demonstrations on Palo Alto’s surprising role in movie breakthroughs and blockbusters
- Common Ground — Community conversations on the issues that matter most. Gatherings for building community connections and belonging.
- Education in Action — Field trips, tours, demos, interactive workshops, and resources serving learners of all ages in the Museum and bringing hands-on discovery to schools and neighborhoods
Plus more ideas have been added along the way: a tribute to Doña Juana Briones, a Kids Zone exploring Palo Alto toys and inventions, a display about the Palo Alto Clinic, and Palo Alto 2044 for community art, writing, and conversation about the future of Palo Alto on its 150th anniversary.
Each prototype builds belonging, understanding, and connection. Each one can go deeper — reaching more people, telling more stories, making a bigger mark — with your partnership and support.
This has always been about more than a building or an opening date. It’s about what a museum can do when it grows with its community — and what becomes possible when people and ideas come together to drive change.
Your voice, your hands, your support: all of it helps build what’s next.
Little Big Ideas isn’t just a preview. It’s the Museum, already happening — and an open invitation to help shape what it becomes.
I am Palo Alto
I AM PALO ALTO is an interactive media installation that brings to life the individuals whose ideas, creativity, and leadership have shaped this city’s identity and outsized influence. Powered by AI voice recognition and grounded in historical records and archival material, PAM is the Museum’s digital docent. Ask a question and PAM responds in real time — connecting you with the words, ideas, and contributions of each figure.
Meet five people who left their mark on Palo Alto and beyond: Jane Stanford, Steve Jobs, Joan Baez, Sam McDonald, and Thomas Foon Chew.
Developed in partnership with transmedia studio Arctic7 and award-winning exhibition design firm Local Projects, and curated by the Palo Alto Museum team, I AM PALO ALTO launches with five voices and is built to grow with evolving input and support–expanding language offerings and adding new figures over time, from Silicon Valley founders to musicians, activists, and everyday residents.
I AM PALO ALTO is more than an exhibit. It is a living mosaic of this city’s past, present, and future.
In collaboration with Eleven Labs
Doña Juana Briones
Doña Juana Briones was a nineteenth-century California pioneer — a healer, entrepreneur, landowner, mother, and advocate who built a life and legacy in what is now Palo Alto.
She ran one of the region’s earliest businesses in Yerba Buena, raised and fostered a large family, healed sailors and settlers, and spent decades fighting to keep the 4,400-acre rancho she had established — a fight that reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 1877.
Her legacy survives in an unlikely artifact: a section of wall from her original home, deconstructed in 2011 and now installed permanently inside the Museum.
Built around 1844, the wall tells a story of blended traditions — pit-sawn redwood, hand-forged nails, and rammed earth, a fusion of American, Californio, and Indigenous methods. Step closer, and you’re standing before one of the last physical remnants of Juana Briones’ world: built by a woman who found the means to defend her land, her family, and her place in history.
Palo Alto at 150
Founded in 1894, Palo Alto will mark its 150th anniversary in 2044. Palo Alto 2044 invites the city — and everyone who has connections to it — not to look back, but forward: to its people, its place, and its possibilities.
This museum-curated exhibition of community creations brings together artwork and writing submitted by you — artists, students, writers, and visionaries from across Palo Alto’s neighborhoods, its sister cities, and around the world. Whether you live in Professorville or Paris, Midtown or Mumbai, Crescent Park or Curitiba, this is your invitation to imagine Palo Alto at 150.
Two Ways to Participate
Visualizing 2044: Invites two-dimensional artwork — drawing, painting, digital art, collage, or photography — imagining the city’s future.
15-Word Story: Asks for a story of Palo Alto’s future told in exactly fifteen words — symbolically for each decade since 1894.
Selected works will be displayed in the Palo Alto 2044 exhibition as part of the Museum’s grand opening in April 2027, featured in a commemorative book, and preserved in a digital time capsule. Companion events and programming will be announced throughout the season.
Submissions are open to everyone, everywhere, through December 31, 2026.