Join the Museum of Riverside at the opening of its centennial exhibition, Dear Riverside, a letter to our first love. This landmark exhibition, 100 years in the making, will be on view from July 25, 2024, to January 5, 2025, at the Center for Social Justice & Civil Liberties (CSJ&CL). The opening reception, free and open to the public, will take place on July 25, 2024, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. The event will feature a blessing by Michael Madrigal and bird singing by CAHUILLA BIRD inside the CSJ&CL gallery, with remarks by Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson, City Manager Mike Futrell, and other community leaders scheduled for 6:00 p.m. at the adjacent Riverside College Culinary Arts Academy Restaurant.
Dear Riverside encapsulates the richness embodied in the Museum’s collection while embracing a future of inclusivity and transparency in professional practices, offering a mix of memories as well as self-reflection. The exhibition will feature items dating to its founding, alongside the newest additions, which were commissioned specifically for this exhibition. Visitors will find significant pieces from history to nature, textiles to botanical specimens, paintings to documents--all collected over the last century from you, our community. The "love letter" will examine honestly the ups and downs of a century of changing museum practices, and in return simply ask, “How can the Museum do better?”
The exhibition is supported by the City of Riverside, Dwight Tate and Kathy Wright, and the Riverside Museum Associates.