PHILADELPHIA, PA.- This January 2026, the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) Philadelphia opens A World in the Making: The Shakers, a major traveling exhibition examining the enduring design reverberations of the Shakers, a centuries-old separatist religious community whose minimalist and functional design principles have influenced generations of artists and makers.

Opening January 31 and running through August 9, 2026, the exhibition features a selection of newly commissioned and existing works by seven international contemporary artists—whose practices reflect on faith, form, and collective life—shown alongside more than 150 original Shaker objects dating back as early as the 18th century, including furniture, tools, textiles, and everyday goods. A World in the Making:

The Shakers is co-organized by Vitra Design Museum, ICA Philadelphia, Milwaukee Art Museum, and the Wüstenrot Foundation in collaboration with Shaker Museum.

Founded in England in the mid-18th century, the Shakers emigrated to the American colonies in 1774, establishing 18 communities whose furniture, domestic objects, and architecture were celebrated for radical simplicity and innovations in standardization and serial production. Today, their influence endures not only through form but through values that continue to shape contemporary practice: intentionality, ethical craftsmanship, accessibility, and collective care.

“As I step into my new role,” said Johanna Burton, incoming Daniel W. Dietrich, II Director of ICA Philadelphia, “I’m honored to help welcome this multifaceted project to Philadelphia. ICA has a unique ability to place experimental voices from today in dialogue with history, generating new ways of writing the past and imagining the future. By commissioning new works by contemporary artists in conversation with the Shaker legacy, the exhibition underscores ICA’s role as a catalyst for creative exchange across time, and as a space where ideas and practices from different eras can illuminate one another in urgent and unexpected ways.”

Seven specially commissioned and existing works anchor the exhibition, each offering a distinct response to the Shaker legacy. Through dance, film, interior design, calligraphy, and other media, artists Reggie Wilson, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Christien Meindertsma, Finnegan Shannon, David Hartt, Chris Liljenberg Halstrøm, and Amie Cunat reimagine how belief systems, community, inclusion, gender, and intentional design continue to shape and catalyze collective life today.

“By inviting contemporary artists to show their work alongside the Shakers’ work, we’re not simply looking back—we’re considering how their ideals of equality, community, and purposeful design might inform new ways of living together now,” said Hallie Ringle, Brett Sundheim Chief Curator of ICA Philadelphia. “As the United States approaches its Semiquincentennial in 2026, the Shakers’ 250-year legacy serves as both mirror and provocation–urging us to imagine what it takes to build a better world.”

Added Zoë Ryan, a co-curator of the exhibition and ICA Philadelphia’s former Director, “This exhibition focuses on interrogating the power of design to shape collective life. The Shakers’ rigorous aesthetics and belief-driven making practices established a visual order that still influences contemporary design. By engaging that legacy through new commissions, A World in the Making: The Shakers emphasizes both the endurance and the fragility of those ideals in our current moment.”
The Shakers is structured into four thematic sections:

● The Place Just Right explores the communal and spiritual architectures that shaped Shaker life. Amie Cunat reimagines a Shaker meetinghouse as an immersive space for reflection and belonging, while Reggie Wilson’s video of his dance work traces connections between Shaker movement and African American dance and music practices. Shaker metronomes, hymnals, illustrations, and instruments ground the artists’ interventions in lived ritual.

● When We Find a Good Thing, We Stick To It examines the Shakers’ devotion to order and systemization, revealing how faith took material form. Artist Kameelah Janan Rasheed responds to writings by Black Shaker Eldress Rebecca Cox Jackson with abstract glyphs that probe codification, interpretation, and heresy. Her work appears in dialogue with Shaker Millennial Laws.

● Every Force Evolves a Form considers the tension between Shaker innovation and isolation, and their influence on craft and modern design. Christien Meindertsma reinterprets Shaker basketry in a prototype for a biodegradable willow coffin, reflecting on cycles of life, craft, and sustainability. Finnegan Shannon explores the Shakers’ progressive approach to accessibility and inclusion, while David Hartt’s film interrogates Shaker spirituality and the rigidity of communal life.

● I Don’t Want to be Remembered as a Chair borrows its title from Sister R. Mildred Barker’s sharp critique of Shaker commodification. This section examines labor as worship and its contemporary resonance. Chris Liljenberg Halstrøm’s large embroidered commission treats each stitch as a prayer. Shown in dialogue are rare “gift drawings” (1839-1850), intricate works born from the divine visions of Shaker Sisters