Cultural Reclamation Works premieres at Tissue Farm this autumn with a new body of work by Jeffrey “Pope” Pankey that imagines a better future by borrowing the visual language of the past. Through vintage-inspired government seals, WPA posters, public service signs, advertisements, product packaging, and fictional civic institutions, the exhibition asks a simple question: What if our nostalgia wasn’t for the world that was, but for the world that could have been? Equal parts satire, design history, and optimism, each piece presents an alternate timeline where empathy, public service, environmental stewardship, and human dignity became ordinary civic values. Cultural Reclamation Works will be on view October 1 through November 22, 2026.

The exhibition builds on ideas first explored in The Cultural Reclamation Project, a 2005 collaboration between Jeffrey “Pope” Pankey and Seattle artist Josh Brown, reimagined through nearly five decades of digital art practice. Every piece begins as an original concept and is developed in collaboration with Pankey’s own locally hosted AI system, built at Tissue Farm as a transparent and responsible creative tool. Rather than replacing the artist, the AI functions as another instrument in a long line of digital tools that have shaped Pankey’s work since 1984, allowing ideas to be explored, refined, and brought to life with an unprecedented level of speed and experimentation. It’s a show about reclaiming the future by redesigning the past.