Phoenix Art Museum

Join us at Phoenix Art Museum for the Matriarch Mixer, presented in collaboration with the Indigenous Community Collaborative and inspired by Cara Romero: Panûpünüwügai (Living Light).

"We are the story. The light. The lineage."

Rooted in this powerful theme, visitors are invited to explore identity, resilience, and community through immersive activities, storytelling, and shared experiences. Inspired by Romero’s exploration of light as a carrier of memory, this space is open to all to reflect, participate, and connect through art.

Schedule of Events:

🎨 5:15–6 pm | Commission Reveal with Cara Romero
🎤 6–7 pm | Open Mic with Rashaad Thomas
🪶 7–7:45 pm | Bird Singing Performance in the Dorrance Sculpture Garden

Throughout the Evening:

💫 Move through a space inspired by Cara Romero: Panûpünüwügai (Living Light) and reflect on presence and connection
📹 Share your story through a short video prompt and contribute to a living archive created live during First Friday
✍️ Visit the Journal Prompt Writing Table with Sketchclub Cafeto add a drawing or written reflection centered on lineage and memory
🎶 Live Music with DJ J-ME LEE
🌮 Local food vendors and drinks available for purchase from Skoden Coffee
🖼️ Docent-Led Tours at 5:30 + 6:30 pm

🎟️ Grab your tickets: https://bit.ly/4vjLMw7

First Fridays are made possible through the generosity of APS, with additional support from Arizona Community Foundation.

Unlimited art. All summer. Just $75. 🌞

Summers in Phoenix are hot, but Phoenix Art Museum is the perfect indoor escape. From Memorial Day through Labor Day, get out of the heat and into our air-conditioned galleries with the PhxArt Summer Pass.

For just $75, pass holders get:

🎟️ Unlimited visits from May 27–September 6, 2026
👫 Free general admission for two adults and all youth (17 and under)
🎬 Free monthly film screening
🛍️ 10% off at the award-winning Museum Store
🎨 Free access to art-making activities + more

And if you don’t want the fun to end after Labor Day, apply the cost of your Summer Pass toward an annual Family Level Membership or above, starting at just $99*

Grab your PhxArt Summer Pass today: https://phxart.org/summer-pass/

*General Admission access during regular Museum hours. Does not include special exhibition tickets during Pay-What-You-Wish Wednesdays and First Fridays or discounts at Alden restaurant. Valid May 27–September 6, 2026. Cannot be combined with other offers. May be applied to an annual Family Level Membership or above at the end of the access period.

On view June 13 | Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller: The Instrument of Troubled Dreams

Experience Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller’s acclaimed interactive audio installation, on view in Arizona for the first time.

Born in small rural towns in Canada, artists Janet Cardiff (b. 1957) and George Bures Miller (b. 1960) have collaborated for more than three decades, developing a singular practice rooted in sound, storytelling, and immersive installation. Working with film, robotics, and advanced audio technologies, their work blurs the boundaries between memory and narrative, inviting viewers into shifting worlds where space, time, and perception are constantly in flux.

In The Instrument of Troubled Dreams, visitors are invited to take a seat at a modified 1960s Mellotron keyboard and become active participants in the work itself. Each of the instrument’s 72 keys triggers a distinct sound, musical fragment, or spoken narrative—from a raven crossing the gallery to soldiers searching an apartment to a carnival drifting past on a barge.

As visitors improvise, they construct their own evolving audio landscapes—composing fragmented, cinematic narratives that shift with every interaction. The result is an experience that is at once intimate and expansive, structured and unpredictable, echoing the unstable nature of memory itself.

Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller: The Instrument of Troubled Dreams marks the artists’ second presentation at Phoenix Art Museum and the Arizona premiere of this major interactive work.

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Image Credits:
Cardiff & Miller, The Instrument of Troubled Dreams, 2018. Interactive audio installation with ambisonic sound. © 2026 courtesy the artists. Oude Kerke Amsterdam.