The Shaw Library is among the DCPL locations hosting the Anacostia Community Museum’s exhibit.

BeyondDC / Flickr

Last month the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum closed on short notice for seven months of renovations. Now, its curators are disassembling its locally focused main exhibition into six parts and installing them in libraries around D.C.

A Right to the City explores gentrification in six D.C. neighborhoods: Adams Morgan, Anacostia, Brookland, Chinatown, Shaw, and Southwest. Through historical photographs, artifacts, and interviews with residents, the exhibition shows how social movements and economic forces have transformed those parts of the city over the past 150 years.

Each of the six sections has been turned into a “mini-satellite version” and will be set up in a library in its corresponding neighborhood, where it will stay until the museum reopens in mid-October. Here’s where you can find each mini-exhibit:

  • Adams Morgan: Mt. Pleasant Library, 3160 16th Street Northwest
  • Anacostia: 1800 Good Hope Road Southeast
  • Brookland: 1801 Hamlin Street Northeast
  • Shaw: 1630 7th Street Northwest
  • Southwest: Will open later in the year when the library’s interim Southwest location opens
  • Chinatown: No location determined yet (MLK Library in Chinatown is also closed for renovations)

“The renovation effort has afforded the museum an opportunity to extend the messages and themes of this exhibition, partner with a community-minded giant such as the library, and reach out to other agencies and audiences across the city in a new way,” said Lisa Sasaki, the Anacostia Museum’s interim director.

The $3.5 million renovation project includes a parking lot upgrade and the addition of a “multi-functional plaza” and community garden, all of which require the closure of the museum’s sidewalks and driveways. The building’s interior lighting and HVAC systems will also get an update.

In the interim, the museum also has partnered with Busboys and Poets to host a conversation series inspired by “A Right to the City.” The first conversation, on housing rights, will take place April 17 at the restaurant’s new Anacostia location.

Would-be visitors to the museum can also call a hotline, the DC Storytelling System, to hear oral history excerpts from the exhibition and record their own stories. The hotline was developed in conjunction with the American University School of Communication. (American University holds the license of WAMU and DCist).

The Anacostia Community Museum is one of the least-visited Smithsonian museums in D.C., with 33,709 visitors last year. (For comparison, the Air and Space Museum hosted 6.2 million visitors.). The community museum was founded in 1967, and moved to its current location at Fort Stanton in 1987.

A Right to the City in its full form will go back on display when the museum reopens through April 2020.

This story originally appeared at WAMU.