This summer, the Hunter Museum of American Art will present Saya Woolfalk: Empathic Universe. Featuring immersive digital artwork utilizing kaleidoscopic video and sound, the exhibition explores imagined future realities through an all-encompassing, science-fiction story world.
The opening reception on Thursday, May 21 will allow guests to be among the first to glimpse this new exhibition, a retrospective covering two decades of Woolfalk’s work, and will feature a talk by the artist.
Doors open at 5:30pm; artist talk at 6:15pm. Free admission for members and youth 17 and under; admission for not-yet-members is $20.
Don’t miss this one-of-a-kind experience that was called “utterly engrossing” by The Wall Street Journal when it debuted at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City. As only the second venue for the exhibition (before it travels to the Smithsonian), the Hunter is excited to bring Saya Woolfalk: Empathic Universe to the region.
Woolfalk’s work represents one of the earliest and most influential examples of “world-building” in contemporary art; her ambitious fictional narrative of the “Empathics” offers distinctive imagery, symbolism, and folklore, which reflect the artist’s investigations of African, African American, Japanese, European, and Brazilian art, craft, and storytelling.
The Hunter Museum presents an adaptation of Saya Woolfalk: Empathic Universe originally presented at the Museum of Arts and Design, New York, 2025.