What is the Lab for Radical Museum Futures?
The Lab for Radical Museum Futures is a practice where museum workers and museum fans learn to prototype futures together. We combine futures thinking, speculative design, and embodied learning to help cultural organizations navigate uncertainty and build imaginative capacity.
We work through:
Consulting & workshops led by Isabella Bruno
Learning cohorts like Public Access where practitioners learn futures literacy together
Collaborative events & partnerships with museums, institutions, and fellow practitioners
A growing network of advisors bringing diverse expertise
An open community exploring museum futures through resources and conversation
We believe museums should be better public services that care for staff and visitors alike—and that imagination is the engine for creating those futures.
Write science fiction as if it’s happening in your neighborhood.
— Octavia Butler on her essay, Lost Races of Science Fiction
Isabella Bruno,
Lead Navigator
Meet the Founder
I lead the Lab for Radical Museum Futures and approach this work more as an artist than a strategist. With a background in dance and architecture (BFA Fordham/Ailey), exhibition design (MA SUNY FIT), and almost two decades across museums, I bridge worlds that don't usually meet. Drawing on established Design Fiction and Design Justice methodology, I adapt these practices for cultural institutions with attention to embodied knowing, cyclical rhythms, and community capacity-building.
Most recently, I was Learning and Community Lead at the Smithsonian Institution's Office of Digital and Innovation, where I coordinated communities of practice for 7,000 employees across 21 museums and libraries, 14 education and research centers, and a zoo. I developed participatory learning programs and evaluation methods for digital transformation initiatives across the institution.
Before that role, I designed exhibitions at the National Museum of American History and the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. I also love teaching as an adjunct instructor in design and museum studies programs.
I practice cyclical living aligned with natural rhythms—bodily cycles, seasonal patterns, embodied knowing. I let this shape how I design learning experiences to honor the body's wisdom alongside intellectual rigor. In my spare time, I boulder, dance, meditate, and make costumes.
Our Advisors
The Lab works with a network of advisors who bring specialized expertise to our collaborative work
Sarah Jutras,
Huzzah Studio
Grow With Us
The Lab is evolving, and we're inviting you to join us as advisors, collaborators, and community members.
The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.
— Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity
Our Values
Add our visions of the future into existing change efforts
Embrace uncertainty as generative space
Consciously use alternative knowledge
Create the future over predicting it
Honor rhythms—seasonal, cyclical, somatic
Clarity without demanding certainty
Lean into embodied action
Use ritual, chance, and play as serious tools
Include the lived experience of all types of stakeholders in imagining what's possible
Clarity without demanding certainty
How We Work
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Prototyping-Led
We use Design Fiction adapted specifically for museum contexts through embodied, participatory practice. From stickers to strategies, we create tangible artifacts you can see, touch, and test.
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Ritual, Chance, & Play
We use card decks, speculative exercises, and playful provocations as serious tools for transformation.
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Community-Centered
Individual growth happens in collective spaces where we learn from and with each other.
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Multiple Scales
We work from individual artifacts to organizational systems, always attending to how they connect and where power lives.
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Embodied and Experiential
We learn through making, moving, and doing—not just talking about futures.
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Clarity Without Certainty
We create frameworks and understanding without pretending to predict or control the future.