Science History Institute Joins ArtPhilly’s Citywide Festival with Unique Museum Tour
What Now: 2026 features artist Aislinn Pentecost-Farren, who will tell the history of the climate crisis through the Institute’s collections.
The Science History Institute is proud to partner with What Now: 2026, ArtPhilly’s citywide festival inspired by America’s Semiquincentennial. This five-week multidisciplinary arts and culture festival challenges artists, audiences, and local cultural institutions like the Institute to blend art and history to imagine what the future holds for both Philadelphia and the country.
What Now: 2026 features more than 30 projects, including From Our Forefathers, a series of museum tours that tell the history of the climate crisis. Artist and public historian Aislinn Pentecost-Farren will re-narrate our permanent collection with “From Our Forefathers: Climate Crisis in Chemistry History,” a unique guided tour taking place in the Institute’s museum on Thursday, May 28; Thursday, June 4; and Wednesday, June 17 from 2:30pm to 3:30pm. Tours are free, but registration is required.
Pentecost-Farren will introduce participants to a selection of discoveries behind iconic 20th-century inventions and reveal the start of the climate crisis within advances in modern chemistry. From a nylon stocking to a lightbulb, she will illuminate our understanding of climate catastrophe by unearthing its origins.
In addition to the tour, Pentecost-Farren also recently collaborated with the Institute’s Roger Turner to co-curate Seeing Carbon, our latest ExhibitLab display on view through June 27, 2026.
About ArtPhilly and What Now: 2026
ArtPhilly is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to amplify Philadelphia as a unique crucible for arts and culture. From May 27 to July 2, ArtPhilly will present What Now: 2026, a major citywide multidisciplinary arts festival celebrating the nation’s 250th anniversary. This inaugural festival, which takes place at iconic Philly museums, landmarks, and venues, features a jam-packed slate of programming reflecting the vibrancy and diversity of the city’s cultural scene with musical concerts, theatrical shows, dance performances, visual art exhibits, and new museum experiences.
About From Our Forefathers
From Our Forefathers is a series of museum tours that tell the history of the climate crisis. Artist Aislinn Pentecost-Farren will guide participants through America’s outsized contribution to climate change through a sequence of encounters with objects that were present at the origins of the crisis, from Indigenous dispossession through the Industrial Revolution. She re-narrates existing exhibitions at the Science History Institute, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Independence Seaport Museum to reveal the unseen origins of climate change hidden within accepted historical narratives. From a stove made by enslaved ironworkers, to an oil painting of a steam turbine, Pentecost-Farren attempts to understand catastrophe by starting at the beginning.
“From Our Forefathers: Climate Crisis in Chemistry History” is commissioned by ArtPhilly as part of its What Now: 2026 festival and is presented in collaboration with the Science History Institute.
About the Artist
Aislinn Pentecost-Farren is an artist and public historian. She reframes museum collections, historic buildings, and overlooked landscapes as starting points for sculpture, writing, and public interventions. Her practice infiltrates existing systems of cultural reproduction to reveal new narratives within established histories and to explore hindsight, responsibility, and time.
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