Lisa Yun Lee, Executive Director at National Public Housing Museum

What if a museum's job isn't simply to preserve history, but to help us imagine a different future? Lisa Yun Lee has spent her career exploring what cultural institutions can make possible when they understand themselves as civic spaces. As Executive Director of the National Public Housing Museum in Chicago, she leads an institution created by public housing residents to preserve their own histories, challenge dominant narratives about public housing, and bring arts, culture, and public policy together in the fight for housing as a human right. In this episode, Lisa traces the winding path that took her from studying religion and German intellectual history to the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, the University of Illinois Chicago, and ultimately the National Public Housing Museum. She shares how the museum puts solidarity with public housing residents into practice, why museums should engage both historical fact and lived experience, and what it means to create a cultural institution rooted in radical hospitality and collective joy. Lisa also challenges arts leaders to think expansively about whom our institutions serve and what success looks like—from compensating artists and cultural workers fairly to creating spaces where people can define beauty for themselves. --- LINKS: National Public Housing Museum: https://nphm.org/ NPHM 36 Questions for Civic Love: https://nphm.org/program/36-questions-for-civic-love/ W.A.G.E.: https://wageforwork.com/