S5, E30: Feel-Good Fridays | An Ode to Obama, New London Museums, and a Hopeful Ocean Story

It’s Feel-Good Friday, and Unpacked host Aislyn and producer Nikki are joined by a guest they’ve been waiting weeks to record with: Afar senior editor Lucy Kehoe, who also edits our UK sister title, Suitcase. Three stories, all good news, landing fittingly on Juneteenth.

Transcript

Nikki: Welcome to Unpacked by Afar. I’m Nikki Galteland.

Aislyn: And I’m Aislyn Greene and today we are joined by a very special guest, Afar senior editor and the editor of our UK based sister publication Suitcase. It’s Lucy Kehoe. Hey, Lucy.

Lucy: Hello. Great to be here.

Aislyn: So good to have you. Yeah, well and we are feeling especially good because it is feel good Friday.

Lucy: Feel good Friday.

Nikki: Yes, yes. Lucy, we’ve been looking forward to recording with you for weeks and weeks, and it’s finally time that we get to share all of our feel good stories.

Aislyn: And we have some good ones. Today we are talking about the Obama Presidential Center.

Lucy: And a bunch of exciting new museums opening in London.

Nikki: And a massive new ocean reserve. It’s going to be good, so stick around after the break.

And we’re back. Aislyn, why don’t you kick us off?

Aislyn: Yes. I’m so excited to be talking about this today because there is a really big deal happening in Chicago. So it’s the Obama Presidential Center. And in my head, when I was thinking about this, I had like a drum roll. And then I was like, no, it wouldn’t be a drum roll. It would be a song from Obama’s, every year he puts out those playlists. And in 2025, one of the songs was Olivia Dean’s ‘Nice to Each Other’, and I just felt like that matches the vibe of what I’m about to talk about.

We could be nice to each other, nice to each other.

Aislyn: The day that this episode comes out is Juneteenth in the United States. It’s the federal holiday that commemorates the end of slavery in the U.S. and as part of the week long celebrations taking place across the country and in Chicago, the doors are officially open to this very cool museum slash community space in Chicago.

Lucy: That sounds like a big deal for Chicago. So what is it exactly?

Aislyn: Yeah. You know, I think it really is going to be a big deal. I imagine it’s going to be a huge tourism draw. And the location is actually a really important part of the centre’s story, which has been, I think, 10 years in the making. It’s a nearly 20-acre campus on Chicago’s South Side, and if you’ve read any of their memoirs, you know that the South Side is a key part of the Obama story. Michelle grew up there. Barack started his political career there. They just have a ton of connections. And the building is quite striking. I mean, I’ve been reading some of the reviews and they’re, they’re a bit mixed. But one of the elements that I really love, and you can see it’s like one of the first things I think that catches your eye is the ‘You are America’ text. It wraps part of the top tower. And these are actually cement letters in Gotham font for the typography nerds out there. That excerpt, part of Obama’s 2015 speech that honored the 50th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery Marches. So it’s so, so cool. Like from a distance, you can’t quite tell what it is. But then you get up close and you’re reading all these really powerful words.

Nikki: Wow. And it’s a huge campus, right? So what actually makes up the whole center?

Aislyn: Yes. And, you know, this is what I found was really interesting. So this is actually his presidential library. Every president gets one, but they wanted it to be more of a center and less of a library and really match the values of the Obamas and the administration. And so most presidential libraries actually house all of the documents from any of their terms. But the Obamas wanted it to be fully digitized so that the center can actually be more of a community and civic forum. So there’s a basketball court, there are picnic areas with charcoal grills, because Obama has wonderful memories of growing up and, you know, grilling in Chicago. The former First Lady designed a garden. And inside this is what I think is super cool, there’s a new branch of the Chicago Public Library that’s open and free to all. There’s a life size replica of the Oval Office, so that anyone can sit behind the Resolute Desk and envision themselves as a future president. And if you like fashion, there are about a dozen outfits from the former First Lady, including the dress she wore on the historic election night in 2008. The black and red one. So yeah, I just I can’t wait to visit. And honestly, it made me feel a little nostalgic. So yeah, so really, really exciting news coming out of Chicago. But Lucy, I think we’re going to spend some time in London with you. What do you have for us today?

Lucy: Yeah. So my Feel Good Friday news is about London, which I live in, as you said. Um, so 5 museums are opening in the city across 2026, which is a lot.

Nikki: Oh my gosh, that is a lot.

Lucy: It is because we already have loads. So it feels like how many more can we have?

Aislyn: Yes. Um London is no slouch in the museum department. So what could they possibly have not covered that’s now going to be covered.

Lucy: So it’s kind of like geographical and thematic I guess. So out east in East London, near the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, we’ve got the V&A East and the V&A East Storehouse. They’ve already opened. They opened a couple of months ago and last month. The storehouse is really cool. I went to see it a few months ago and had a behind the scenes peek. It’s all kind of like about how museums work, showing you how and why collections are created. And it’s all in this beautiful, vast, multi-level, slightly vertigo inducing space where you’re sort of. I know that our editorial director, Nick, went over when he was in London, and he said, You didn’t tell me. It would make me feel ill, because all the all the floors are like glass. It’s amazing. So you can see conservationists at work. You can book out items to inspect and look at them hands on. So for a museum geek like me, it really doesn’t get much better. I haven’t been to the other one, the V&A East yet, which is about a 15-minute walk from the storehouse. But there the idea is again, a little bit different. It’s all about how ideas and creativity are shaping global culture now and how we represent that in a museum.

Aislyn: That’s so cool. We’ll have to link out to that episode that Nick did tied to the Where to Go posting, because it really did inspire me to spend some time in that part of London. So what other museums are opening?

Lucy: Sure. So one is just open, which is the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration. If you know Roald Dahl’s children’s stories like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, George’s Marvellous Medicine, The Witches, then you’ll recognise Quentin Blake’s illustrations because they’ve always accompanied the author’s work. And it’s not just Blake. This is going to be the UK’s first permanent gallery for illustration. So there are loads of different artists in there. Something that caught my eye when I was looking at all the sort of information on it, is that there are these really cool documentary illustrations by an artist called Jo Brocklehurst, and they’re of New York’s dance scene in like the 80s. So they’re really bright people with crazy hair. It kind of showed that illustration isn’t just for kids, which was interesting because it was beautiful imagery of modern culture, which was really cool.

And then we’ve got the London Museum, which confusingly used to be called the Museum of London, but they changed the name slightly. Um, I feel like everyone will still be calling it the old name. So that’s not a new museum, it’s just that it’s been relocated to this beautiful new site. So it’s going in the old Smithfield Meat Market in the city of London. It’s opening towards the end of the year, and that’s going to have loads more space for its artifacts, which are just all about London from prehistoric times to now.

And then finally, this one’s all very hush hush, and I haven’t heard much about it. And it’s all been kept quite quiet and on the down low. But there’s the slightly delayed Museum of Youth Culture, which is opening at the end of June in Camden in north London. It looks really cool. It looks like a sort of club or a nightclub. The renderings are all like strobe, spotlights, like concrete pillars. It looks like Berghain or something. And this is all teenagers. So it’s all about subcultures. There’ll be a permanent 100,000-strong collection of items telling the story of mods, rockers, ravers, emos. Um. I did note that there will be a Sony Walkman in there. That’s like my childhood is now museum worthy. So quite, quite upset by that, but sounds good and looks amazing.

Nikki: Oh my gosh, I miss the Walkman. I’m glad it’s being remembered.

Aislyn: Yes, I know I have to show you my phone case. Lucy you might appreciate.

Nikki: It’s a cassette.

Lucy: Yeah.

Aislyn: So you know, I feel you. I had a Walkman too.

Nikki: I think that brings us to my story. So I’m very excited to talk about the Melanesian Ocean Reserve. It is a 6-million-square-kilometer expanse of protected ocean, and it covers a bunch of islands in the South Pacific. And just to put that in perspective, 6,000,000 square kilometers is about the size of the Amazon rainforest. So it’s absolutely massive.

Lucy: Wow. That’s huge. So where is it?

Nikki: So it’s a multinational project. It encompasses the national waters of the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and Papua New Guinea, as well as some other surrounding territories. And it’s one of the most biodiverse sections of the whole ocean. So it’s really exciting that all of these different protected areas are coming together under one framework. And the other thing that’s really cool about it is that it’s indigenous-led.

Aislyn: That is especially inspiring. So what does that mean exactly?

Nikki: So the framework was originally proposed and developed by indigenous leaders from the participating countries. And it explicitly recognizes the authority of indigenous people to steward their ocean spaces. So all the rules are designed to flow from local knowledge and customs, and it’s more about working up from local management because like I said, this is sort of a patchwork of areas that have been protected in various ways previously. So it’s working up from that local management into a broader framework, rather than like bringing in some big international government body to like manage it from the top down.

Aislyn: Yeah, that’s so cool. And I imagine that fishing is a huge part of this conversation, right? And how do you kind of do that in a sustainable way?

Nikki: Exactly. Yeah. So the big emphasis is on preventing the harmful deep sea mining and industrial fishing while still allowing local communities to fish and pursue their livelihood. So it’s yeah, it’s just really encouraging. And I also think it’s really cool that even the NGOs that are surrounding it and like doing the kind of work of the management are themselves also indigenous-led.

Aislyn: Oh, wow.

Nikki: So there’s Dr. Edgar Pollard, who’s an indigenous ecologist based in the Solomon Islands, and he leads the Islands Knowledge Institute, which is doing like the diplomatic and connecting work of getting the framework off the ground and turning it into policy. And then there’s an NGO called Nia Tero, which is kind of like bringing in the money and so important. And that’s led by ‘Aulani Wilhelm. Yeah. I mean, they’re doing other things too. But I think that’s a really important part that often gets sort of messy power dynamics wise. But in this case, ‘Aulani is Native Hawaiian, and she previously worked on the Papahanaumokuakea Ocean Reserve in Hawaii, which is also just like a huge marine reserve and really important to ocean ecology. So it’s cool to see her name coming up again.

Lucy: That’s so cool. And is the new reserve open to tourism? Can we go and visit?

Nikki: It is. Absolutely. So tourism is built into the conservation plans. And it is, I would say like it’s an amazing place to visit. It’s the heart of what’s called the Coral Triangle. So it’s 76 percent of the world’s coral species are found in this newly combined protected area. And they also have some really exciting big animals like whale sharks and dugongs, which Aislyn knows is like a dream animal encounter of mine. So I didn’t expect this to become my personality at Afar, but I just really need to see a dugong or a manatee or both.

Aislyn: I think both. You know, over your tenure here, that should be the goal. We need to send you here to report a story on it, Nikki.

Lucy: We need to record the big animals. Yes.

Nikki: Big animals. Exactly.

Aislyn: Oh my God. All right. That’s our that’s our goal for next week is how do we get you there?

Nikki: I’m down. I’m ready. Let’s do it.

Aislyn: This was a Feel-Good Friday episode of Unpacked by Afar.

Nikki: Make sure to tune in every Friday for a dose of good news from Afar’s favorite travel writers.

Lucy: You can subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and follow @AfarMedia on social.

Aislyn: And please don’t forget to subscribe to our Behind the Mic newsletter at Afar.com.

Nikki: This show is part of the Airwave Media Podcast Network. Music from Chris Colin and Epidemic Sound.

Lucy: See you next Friday.

Nikki: See ya. Bye.