Love exploring all kinds of art with your kids? If so, don’t miss these two exhibits at two of Seattle’s most prestigious museums:
“Lessons from the Institute of Empathy: installation (Photo courtesy Seattle Art Museum)
Lessons from Institute of Empathy | Seattle Art Museum
Sit down right in front of this fascinating installation. Don’t worry about what other people filing through the museum think. Listen to the haunting soundtrack, follow the bouncing bubbles of rainbow lights that travel from the artwork out to the viewer, and marvel at the three life-sized, intricately sculpted figures from which the light and sound emanate.
This is how my kids and I experience artist Saya Woolfalk’s “ChimaTEK: Virtual Chimeric Space (2015-2016).” The marquee work of the multi-year project, an installation called “Lessons from the Institute of Empathy,” has lived on the fourth floor of the Seattle Art Museum (SAM) since 2018, but it will be leaving the museum soon and worth a SAM trip before it goes., has lived on the fourth floor of the Seattle Art Museum (SAM) since 2018, but it will be leaving the museum soon and is well worth a SAM trip before it goes.
ChimaTEK is pure immersive art: paint, sculpture, light, sound, and mythology. According to curators, the art asks viewers to entertain the idea of a new reality—to “envision a new world, one that is governed by empathy, equity, and justice.” The central figures in the tableau are called Empathics—a race of super-powered women who can fuse with plants and, as a result, hold the cure for apathy. Empathics travel the world, mitigating a pandemic of “Empathy Deficit Disorder,” according to the artist. Their stop at SAM was always intended as one of many on that world journey. After almost eight years, the artwork is ready to move on.
“Lessons from the Institute of Empathy” is on view at SAM Wednesday through Sunday through November 29, 2026.
Admission is $22, and kids under 14 get in free.
Eric-Paul Riege’s stunning, tactile, soft-sculpture exhibition ojo|-|ólǫ́,(Image courtesy Henry Art Museum)
Meet Me at the Henry | Henry Art Gallery
How about a whole day of fun amid art? Play Art Bingo, watch performances, tour Henry’s print collection, and print a work of art to take home!
That’s what you’ll find at Henry Art Gallery on Oct. 24 during the museum’s biannual Meet Me at the Henry” event. It’s an all-day, all-ages art-love extravaganza where attendees can make, see, play with, and experience artwork, and connect the dots on all these experiences.
During the event, University of Washington Professor Amanda Lee, an expert in paint and printmaking, will discuss the Henry’s print collections, and artist and educatorMalia Peoples will assist visitors as they create a Hawaiian ‘ohe kapala-inspired bamboo print. The prints will draw on the bold, dynamic art on view in exhibitions by Helen Frankenthaler and Joiri Minaya.
As part of an activity-packed day, Amanda Leigh Evans and Tia Kramer, the artists behind DeepTime Collective, will invite artists young and old to experience time outside their typical time-keeping devices with a performance called “What Time is This Place.” Evans and Kramer have explored how time and the places we live shape who we are and how we see ourselves. Their art explores different ways of thinking about time: the millions of years it takes for Earth to change, how we lose track of time when we’re deeply involved in something, and how our lives connect to people who came before us and those who will come after us. They also explore how clocks, calendars, and school and work schedules shape how we live. In a nutshell, DeepTime Collective wants viewers to think about how we measure time and how that changes our relationships with nature, the places around us and other people.
(Photo courtesy Henry Art Gallery)
That said, it’s definitely worth setting an alarm for 2 p.m. on Meet me at the Henry day. That’s when interdisciplinary artist marco farroni leonardo will use movement, sound, costume, conversation, and camouflage for a performance with the artworks in the exhibition “Joiri Minaya: To Hell with Hibiscus.”
The Oct. 24 event is also one of the last days to see Dine artist Eric-Paul Riege’s stunning, tactile, soft-sculpture exhibition ojo|-|ólǫ́, which ends Oct. 25. Check out our mother-daughter review of the exhibit ojo|-|ólǫ́.
Admission to the Henry Art Gallery is always free.
