Across four preceding phases, hundreds of visitors shaped the work that would eventually fill these galleries. They connected works from the permanent collection to specific Wichita neighborhoods. They wrote wall labels in their own voices. They curated virtual exhibitions through a custom app. They voted on works by local artists. They lent personal objects from their own lives and explained why those objects mattered. With, Not For gathered the most resonant of these contributions into a single exhibition — one shaped by the choices, reflections, and trust of the community itself.

The exhibition represents the synthesis of the Co-Lab’s research and the relationships built across its phases. It proposes a new model for institutional practice: one in which curatorial authority is shared, where academic frameworks are placed in dialogue with lived experience, and where the museum operates as a commons rather than a container.

The exhibition does not present this as a finished answer to current questions of museum accountability and relevancy, but as an ongoing inquiry. It invites visitors to reflect on what has been made together, and to consider what might be built from here.