A Step Ahead: Sarasota Art Museum Celebrates Forward-Thinking Footwear

A new exhibition at Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling College explores human innovation through an unconventional lens: your shoes. Future Now: Virtual Sneakers to Cutting-Edge Kicks, features almost 200 years of footwear design and technology, including hints of what may come next. 

“This exhibition is so much fun,” shares Executive Director Virginia Shearer. “Shoes are so personal, yet they are also so universal. I love seeing all these fantastic examples of footwear take over an art museum gallery—shoes of all colors, styles, and time periods on pedestals. When thinking about art and design, we don’t often think about what’s on our feet. To me, that’s what makes this exhibition so intriguing and certainly what makes it so accessible.”

Museumgoers can expect to find classic favorites like Crocs, Converse, Jelly Sandals, and Dr. Martens. They’ll also discover heelless high heels, 3D-printed shoes, virtual reality prototype boots, and a futuristic concept that would allow humans to one day grow their own custom footwear using mycelium, or fungus.

“The latest and greatest ideas always seem a little ‘far out’ at first,” admits Rangsook Yoon, Senior Curator of Sarasota Art Museum. “Whether or not fungi footwear is in our future, we can’t say for sure. What we do know is that artists and designers have always played an important role in developing creative solutions to meet the challenges of the day. Today’s artists and innovators are no different.”

Walking through the gallery from showcase to showcase feels like traveling through time. Time travel particularly comes into focus with one piece, the Nike Mag. You may remember the inspiration for this self-lacing sneaker: a movie prop made famous by Marty McFly in the hit series Back to the Future. Movie fans loved the concept of “power lace” technology so much that in 2011 and 2015, Nike released limited editions of the futuristic shoe.

Though the shoes on display are all empty, the human presence is strongly felt throughout.

“Shoes are undeniably human,” says Shearer. “To date, no other living thing (at least that I know of) has innovated their own footwear. So, when we look specifically at the design of footwear across time, we’re really seeing the story of us, humankind, unfold.”

Future Now: Virtual Sneakers to Cutting-Edge Kicks is on view at Sarasota Art Museum February 9-May 4, 2025. Admission is free for Museum Members or $20 for not-yet Members. More at SarasotaArtMuseum.org.

Future Now: Virtual Sneakers to Cutting-Edge Kicks is co-organized by the American Federation of Arts and the Bata Shoe Museum, and curated by Elizabeth Semmelhack, director and senior curator, Bata Shoe Museum.