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This May, The Met is going big—and you’re invited.
On Saturday, May 31, the Metropolitan Museum of Art will throw a massive, all-day festival to celebrate the reopening of The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, which has been closed since 2021 for a sweeping renovation. Now, after four years, the galleries for the Arts of Africa, the Ancient Americas and Oceania are back—and they’re debuting with a bang.
Kicking off with a ribbon-cutting ceremony from 9 to 10:30 am, the museum will transform into a global cultural playground from noon to 6 pm. Expect a full sensory overload: traditional music and dance from Senegal to Tahiti, live art-making workshops, Indigenous film screenings and food you won’t find anywhere else in the city.
The Queens Night Market will pop up on-site with a rare culinary twist, serving made-to-order meals inspired by pre-colonial recipes from Peru, Hawaii, Sierra Leone and more. Think of it as edible anthropology. Meanwhile, mosaic artist Manny Vega will lead a collaborative project on the Met’s plaza, turning visitor-made emblems into a giant diasporic art piece that speaks to the city’s cultural intersections.
If you want to get even more hands-on, you can try drum-making, weave alongside master artisans from Oceania and the Andes or help paint a community mural. Outside, a lineup of cultural orgs like CCCADI and the Pacific Island Film Festival will showcase how the city’s creative communities keep ancestral traditions alive.
Inside, curators, artists and scholars will guide guests through the new galleries, which have been redesigned to better reflect the cultural legacies they represent. Expect rich storytelling and cutting-edge displays, including tech innovations and architectural elements rooted in regional traditions. Later in the day, the lead architect behind the redesign, Kulapat Yantrasast, will chat with Met director Max Hollein about the project’s vision.
All outdoor events are free; indoor activities are free with museum admission, no registration required. With bold new design, global rhythms and food for thought (and the stomach), this won’t be your average museum visit.