Street Signs, Sci-Fi and Teen Curators Take Over the Bronx Museum

The Bronx Museum opened its fall season on October 9 with three projects bringing different perspectives on art and New York City life. Artist Alex Strada transformed the words of shelter residents into public street signs, 14 high school students curated an exhibition from the museum’s collection and Saya Woolfalk introduced WoodsWoman, a fictional botanist-healer from her science-fiction universe. Woolfalk delivered remarks during the museum’s free public opening celebration.

For Public Address, artist Alex Strada worked with people living and working in New York City homeless shelters to share their personal experiences. Their handwritten stories and drawings were reproduced on aluminum street signs made by the city’s Department of Transportation and installed in public spaces throughout the Bronx, a borough the museum identifies as having the city’s highest number of shelters.

Strada has worked with more than 300 shelter residents and staff through writing workshops since becoming a Public Artist in Residence with New York City’s Departments of Homeless Services and Cultural Affairs in 2022. Their personal accounts are now displayed at Joyce Kilmer Park, throughout the Bronx and inside the museum. First introduced in Manhattan in 2025, Public Address traveled to Brooklyn before arriving in the Bronx this September. The project will continue to Staten Island and Queens before concluding at Flushing Meadows Corona Park in March 2027.

Inside the museum, the teens are in charge. Fourteen New York City high school students from the museum’s 2026 Teen Summer program curated Beyond the Margins, selecting works by 11 artists from its permanent collection. Through photography, painting, printmaking and assemblage, the exhibition examines how artists challenge conventions, experiment with materials and use their work as a form of resistance. The students leave visitors with a question: “What does it mean to push boundaries, and how do we do it everyday?”

In another gallery, artist Saya Woolfalk brings science fiction into the mix with The WoodsWoman Method. Her character WoodsWoman is a botanist and healer from an imagined future where humans and nature live in harmony. Woolfalk used this perspective to explore the Bronx Museum’s collection of nearly 2,000 objects, selecting works by Huma Bhabha, Robert Blackburn, Abigail DeVille and Martin Wong. The museum has made records of these selected works available online for the first time.

Woolfalk hopes the exhibition creates “space for visitors to make unexpected connections.” Eileen Jeng Lynch, the museum’s Director of Curatorial Programs, said Woolfalk’s work “has always pushed us to think expansively about what contemporary art can do.” Woolfalk’s connection to the museum goes back to 2009, when she completed its AIM Fellowship. In 2025, she was the subject of a survey exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Design. Her latest exhibition offers a preview of the permanent artwork she is creating for the Bronx Museum’s renovated main lobby.

The lobby is getting a major makeover as part of the museum’s ongoing renovation. Architecture firm Marvel is redesigning the space to connect the buildings and make it easier for visitors to move between galleries. Plans include a new entrance near Grand Concourse and East 165th Street, large windows offering views of the artwork from outside and exposed brick from the building’s days as a synagogue. Rooftop solar panels are part of the design.

The renovation has faced changes in its budget and completion schedule. In 2024, New York City announced nearly $33 million in city funding, with plans to reopen in 2026. The museum now reports a total project budget of $42.9 million, with the renovated campus expected to open in fall 2027. The museum remains open during construction.

One of the works selected for Beyond the Margins is Rush Hour, Brooklyn, New York, a 1980 photograph by Jamel Shabazz. The Brooklyn-born photographer spent decades capturing the everyday lives of Black and Latino New Yorkers, documenting the street fashion and personalities of a generation that helped shape hip-hop culture. His photographs remain an important visual record of New York before the city’s street culture became a global influence.

Admission is always free. The Bronx Museum is at 1040 Grand Concourse and open Wednesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Beyond the Margins runs through January 3, 2027 and The WoodsWoman Method through March 28, 2027.

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