Plans underway to move Museum of Ancient Wonders to Palm Springs, add LGBTQ+ world history collection
While there is no official word on where the two museums will be housed in the city, co-founder Alberto Acosta does have some leads and has been working with city officials to bring about the move.
The Museum of Ancient Wonders (MoAW) plans to move its collection of exhibitions from Cathedral City to a larger venue in Palm Springs, clearing the way for a new LGBTQ+ World History Museum.
The museum is currently housed in a 7,500-square-foot building in the Cathedral Gateway Plaza, but Alberto Acosta, its co-founder, is looking to the future and knows his growing collection of exhibits, in addition to his plans for a new LGBTQ+ History Museum, can easily fill up to 20,000 square feet.
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While there is no official word on where the two museums will be housed in the city, Acosta does have some leads and has been working with city officials to bring about the move.
“We think it’s important to have both museums under one roof so that the 10,000-year arc of LGBTQ experiences are in the same company with the paleontology, paleoanthropology, archeology, and cultural archeology exhibitions,” says Acosta. “This would help to institutionalize the subject of such a comprehensive history of LGBTQ experiences in a global chronological format.”
The museum’s current exhibitions include replicas of historical artifacts like ancient Greek pottery, Egyptian artifacts found in Pharaoh Tutankhamun’s Tomb, and African masks from 12 central African countries and 27 different indigenous communities.
The museum also features laboratory-cast fossils representing important discoveries in paleontology.
Acosta hopes the museum’s new location will continue to strengthen the education of the almost 70,000 students who attend local schools.
“We’ve seen hundreds of students from local and surrounding school districts for field trips,” says Acosta. “We are one of the most popular destinations in the valley for tourists.”
Acosta hopes the combined museums will one day rival the size of other museums in the city, like the Palm Springs Air Museum. For hime, it’s about introducing museum diversity with his unique take on prehistory and the long history of LGBTQ+ history.
This is an “unprecedented museum focusing on 10,000 years of LGBTQ history involving the lives of rulers, warriors, artists, scientists, activists, and more,” Acosta said.
Acosta is still looking for a space in Palm Springs big enough for his museums and hopes to open by September.
“We are leaving behind a legacy for generations,” says Acosta. There isn’t a museum of that scope and nature, which is why it’s so important to Palm Springs.”
Learn more: For more information on the new LGBTQ+ History Museum, visit this page, and for more information on the Museum of Ancient Wonders, visit this page.
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