Portland Museum

You’re looking at the winners of the 2026 Portland Festival Parade Portland Spirit Award! We were so proud to march through our neighborhood with Squallis Puppeteers () and share Art and Jerry’s shantyboat with you all! We’re tabling today until dark, so if you’re at the Festival come say hey, $5 t-shirt sale continues!

We’re at the Portland Festival this weekend with a special one-time deal: $5 on ALL of our t-shirts! Come see us, chat with Elijah and William, and get a shirt for a price that can’t be beat. Today until 8ish and tomorrow from 1-8ish!

⚓ BIG NEWS FROM AHOY! ⚓

After years of dreaming, planning, fundraising, design, and community collaboration, AHOY Children’s Museum is finally under construction!

We are excited to officially announce our partnership with Weber Group as the design build team helping bring Louisville’s first dedicated children’s museum to life.

In just two and a half weeks, major demolition and building envelope work has already been completed across our historic campus. Watching these buildings transform from vision to reality has been incredible.

AHOY is more than a museum. It is a community created space for play, creativity, exploration, and discovery. Inspired by the adventurous spirit of City Museum in St. Louis, adventure playgrounds around the world, and the creativity of children themselves, AHOY will offer opportunities for open ended exploration, artistic expression, risk taking, problem solving, and wonder.

As construction moves forward, we will also be collaborating with international, national, regional, and local artists, designers, educators, and makers to create unique experiences throughout the museum. Stay tuned for artist announcements and upcoming RFP opportunities.

Thank you to Weber Group and the many people who have helped make this moment possible. We are grateful to Wolfgang & Hite, Architecture and Exhibition Design, whose early architectural and exhibition design work contributed to the project's development, as well as Pat Blackburn and VBN Architects, Clinton Deckard of Construction Solutions, Michael Bryant of PACE Contracting, Claude Stephens of Playcecosystem, Squallis Puppeteers, Ludicology (UK), Jo Marsh with Tŷ Pawb (UK), our staff, the AHOY Children's Museum Committee, the Portland Museum Board, the Portland community, and Plus & Greater Than (OR).

This project belongs to the community, and now we finally get to watch it rise.

Our inaugural play facilitator in residence Hailey Spivak connecting with the GOAT Claude Stephens from Bernheim’s Playcocystem alongside their Playcocystem Coordinator Zach Bramel! AHOY Children’s Museum under construction as well as our upcoming staffing and residencies expanding!!

The 2026 competition was done in partnership with the Portland Museum and Jefferson County Public Schools. See link below ⬇️

📸 Bailey Reed

Thank you to Transit Authority of River City (TARC) and to everyone who came out for the bus unveiling this morning! Congratulations to the winning JCPS student artists, we’re proud to display your work alongside our theming!

TARC, the Portland Museum, and JCPS will introduce the 2026 Design-a-Bus student-contest winners and unveil the new bus design at a morning press conference at Portland Museum on Thursday, May 28th at 10AM!

The Design-a-Bus contest is open to all elementary, middle, and high school students in Jefferson, Oldham and Bullitt counties in Kentucky, and Floyd and Clark counties in Southern Indiana. This year students were invited to submit artwork focused on the theme: “Portals of Transition.” They were asked to reflect on a period of change, where they explored or tried something new, then created an illustration of that experience.

The 10 winning submissions by students will be featured on a custom TARC bus wrap reflecting this year’s theme and partner. The student winners and their adult guests have been invited to the debut of the bus at Portland Museum on May 28, when the bus will officially begin service! The bus will operate on all TARC routes, and serve as the flagship bus for special events, and parades throughout the Louisville metro region for one full year.

“The Portland Museum is growing, and so is our sense of adventure,” said Katy Delahanty, Executive Director of the Portland Museum. “Through our partnership with TARC, each bus becomes a traveling invitation, a portal to play carrying the spirit of the new AHOY Children’s Museum into every neighborhood. Adventure on the move.” “The Design-a-Bus is a contest TARC staff and our city look forward to every year,” said Ozzy Gibson, Executive Director of TARC. “We’re excited for a great partnership with the Portland Museum as they expand, with the #5 Portland-Poplar Level route of the New TARC Network providing increased access to their new addition.”

Check out this write-up by curator and our artist-in-residence Erica Lewis all about our current exhibit Human, too:

Portland Museum Displays Inmate Artwork with Exhibit "Human, too" Learn all about how Portland Museum's exhibition "Human, too," featuring artwork from inmates in LMDC’s Chance 4 Change program, came together from its curator Erica Lewis.