Worcester Art Museum Announces Exhibitions Exploring Weather and Climate Change, from Mythology to Meteorology 

Worcester, MA—June 26, 2025—In the spring of 2026, the Worcester Art Museum (WAM) will present two exhibitions exploring humanity’s evolving experiences with weather and climate, from the 16th century to today. An immersive, site-specific exhibition by artists Christa Donner and Andrew S. Yang titled Fever Dreams of a Cool-Breathed Earth will open on April 11, 2026. It will be on view alongside A Weather Eye: Art and Early Modern Meteorology, an exhibition of more than 40 artworks, primarily works on paper from the Museum’s collection, opening on March 28, 2026. Together, the two exhibitions will trace our evolving understanding of the weather—from mythology and witchcraft to science and meteorology—with Donner and Yang’s works inviting viewers to consider the impacts of climate change on our lives today. 

The immersive exhibition by Donner and Yang, commissioned by WAM, will combine kinetic and interactive sculptures, collages, drawings, videos, and soundscapes. Visitors will enter through a constructed breezeway, experiencing shifts in atmosphere. Inside, visitors will find artworks that engage sight, sound, and touch, inviting them to imagine possible futures for humanity and our environment. The exhibition’s title, Fever Dreams of a Cool-Breathed Earth, is inspired by quotes from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. 

This thematic exhibition of newly created artworks is Donner and Yang’s largest collaboration to date. The artists will approach the ongoing threat of climate change in conversation with communities regional to the Worcester Art Museum. Their work will be informed by the perspectives of Massachusetts-based climatologists, community gardeners, and local residents. “Areas of greenery help to disperse and reduce heat, so densely populated urban areas are disproportionately affected by the rising temperatures caused by climate change,” say Donner and Yang. “Our goal is to explore and expand on our collective experiences, including those of other species.”  

Fever Dreams of a Cool-Breathed Earth is curated by Samantha Cataldo, the Museum’s Curator of Contemporary Art. Cataldo says, “We are thrilled to be working with Christa Donner and Andrew S. Yang on this ambitious project. Their exhibition continues an ongoing expansion of contemporary art at WAM, working directly with artists on large-scale, site-specific commissions that propose new ideas and breathe new life into spaces throughout the Museum.” Fever Dreams of a Cool-Breathed Earth will be on view from April 11 through late summer 2026. 

The partner exhibition, A Weather Eye: Art and Early Modern Meteorology, will explore the dramatic scientific and social shift in Europe and America’s collective understanding of weather from the 16th to early 19th century, with a particular focus on advances in meteorology. It will be organized into five thematic sections. The first will cover traditional weather iconography, including an engraving of Fortuna by Flemish artist Hans Collaert the Younger (1561–1620) depicting weather as a metaphor for chance and unpredictability. The second section will delve into the classical theory of weather as the result of collisions between the four elements (earth, air, water, and fire). This will be followed by an exploration of the blending of sorcery and science up until the 18th century through “weather wising,” folk knowledge, astrology, and almanacs. The fourth section will examine how individuals such as Benjamin Franklin and René Descartes became mythologized as symbols of progress during the Enlightenment. The exhibition will end with a selection of satirical prints “making light of the storm,” including four works by English caricaturist and book illustrator George Cruikshank. 

A Weather Eye is curated by Olivia Stone, the Museum’s Assistant Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photography. “The Worcester Art Museum has remarkable holdings of European and American works on paper from the early modern period,” says Stone. “Due to their sensitivity to light, these artworks can only be displayed for short periods. We are looking forward to sharing this pivotal period of history through rarely seen materials—including textiles, books, and weather-forecasting tools—that bring science and art together.” A Weather Eye will be on view March 28–June 28, 2026. 

Accompanying the two exhibitions will be a catalog titled Facing the Elements: Visualizing Weather Then, Climate Now, containing notes and responses from Donner and Yang to the works in A Weather Eye alongside preparatory sketches for their work. Published by Hirmer, the catalog will include interviews by Donner and Yang with renowned climatologist Raymond S. Bradley and Michele Wick, a psychologist who focuses on responses to climate change. Author and print specialist Rebecca Szantyr (New York Public Library) will contribute an essay on weather and humor, and Cataldo and Stone will introduce the themes of both exhibitions. 

“Our strong collection of early modern prints provides a compelling launching point for Donner and Yang’s work. Their backgrounds in both academic research and art on climate change will contribute to an exhibition that has both global implications and roots in the Museum’s local community,” says Claire Whitner, the Museum’s Director of Curatorial Affairs and the James A. Welu Curator of European Art. “By aligning our contemporary projects with the presentation of our historic collection, we underscore its enduring relevance to our visitors. This will be made even more evident in the catalog, which is in many ways a work of art in itself.” 

The Museum will host an After Hours event on April 10, 2026, to celebrate the opening of the two exhibitions, with additional related programs and events to be announced. For more information about the Museum’s schedule of public programs, visit www.worcesterart.org/events. 

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Images: 

_{Left: Christa Donner, Preparatory Sketch for Fever Dreams of a Cool-Breathed Earth (Cool Front), 2025, watercolor on paper. Courtesy of the artist. © Christa Donner.} 

_{Right: George Cruikshank, A Tailor in a high Wind, 1819, etching with watercolor on cream wove paper mounted to brown paper, Gift of Dr. Samuel B. Woodward, 1934.319}