The Portland Art Museum presents Future Now: Virtual Sneakers to Cutting-Edge Kicks

Coming to the Portland Art Museum March 30, in partnership with the Bata Shoe Museum in Canada, Future Now: Virtual Sneakers to Cutting-Edge Kicks is a groundbreaking new exhibition that features nearly 60 futuristic footwear designs pushing the boundaries of what footwear can be.

Featuring an incredible mix of fashion, design, gaming, new media, architecture and material arts as well as sustainable and collaborative practices, the exhibition features work by designers as diverse as Rem D. Koolhaas and Zaha Hadid, innovators Mr. Bailey and Salehe Bembury, as well as designs made in collaboration with fashion icons Rick Owens, Stella McCartney, Yohji Yamamoto and top gaming companies including PlayStation, EA Sports and more.

(Photo courtesy PAM)
“The future is always being shaped by the present. The exhibition includes many incredible and innovative new footwear designs that are promising to transform what we will wear tomorrow. From sneakers created to address issues related to sustainability and inclusion to shoes that blur the line between the real world and the metaverse, this exhibition explores how forward-looking creators are helping us step into the future.” — Elizabeth Semmelhack, director and senior curator, Bata Shoe Museum

Exhibits

(Photo courtesy of PAM)
Future Now features sections exploring innovation, sustainability, transformative, and virtual shoes, and include digitally designed and 3D-printed shoes, sneakers made from mushroom leather and reclaimed ocean plastics, and footwear created for the metaverse. The Nike Mag, conceived for Back to the Future Part II by Portland’s own Tinker Hatfield, will also be on display, as well as recent innovators MSCHF’s Big Red Boots and EKTO VR’s One Robotic Boots and artist collaborations like Takashi Murakami x RTFKT.

Unique to Portland Art Museum’s presentation of the exhibition is a collaboration with Doernbecher Freestyle, celebrating its 20th year of partnership between OHSU Doernbecher Children’s Hospital and NIKE Inc. This partnership pairs Doernbecher patient-designers with NIKE, Inc. product creation employees to create footwear that brings each patient’s vision and story to life—with 100% of the profits from retail sales donated to the children’s hospital.

Opening Weekend

Future Now’s opening weekend will kick off Friday, March 29, with a free screening at PAM CUT’s Tomorrow Theater of the 2005 documentary Just for Kicks, an in-depth examination of the culture and fashion of the sneaker. On opening day Saturday, March 30, exhibition curator Elizabeth Semmelhack, Bata Shoe Museum director and senior curator, will engage with PAM curator Amy Dotson for a lively discussion of innovation, futurism, materiality and technology within footwear design. And Thursday, April 4, will offer two free opportunities to experience and learn more about Future Now: an Art and Conversation program with curator Dotson in the morning, and free admission for the community all day, 10 a.m. – 8 p.m., for the first Free First Thursday of Future Now.