SUBMISSION DEADLINE: MARCH 15, 2026
EXHIBITION DATES: JULY 10-AUGUST 28,2026
LOCATION: JOHN A. DAY GALLERY, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH DAKOTA, WARREN M. LEE CENTER FOR THE FINE ARTS
The University Art Galleries invites emerging, mid-career, and established artists to submit work for Atmospheric Thinking, a juried exhibition examining contemporary interpretations of the sky as subject, medium, and metaphor. Across disciplines, the sky has served as a site of scientific observation, spiritual imagination, environmental urgency, and aesthetic inquiry. In the context of a rapidly changing atmosphere—meteorological, political, and digital—this exhibition invites artists to interrogate, disrupt, and reimagine the sky beyond its traditional role as a background or horizon.
Atmospheric Thinking encourages artists and viewers to recognize the sky not simply as scenery, but as a dynamic, layered field where perception, ecology, technology, culture, and memory intersect. As climate systems shift, digital networks expand, and questions of visibility, surveillance, and environmental justice intensify, the atmosphere becomes a site of inquiry that reflects and refracts contemporary conditions by engaging with the sky as both a material and a metaphor, illuminating the subtle forces that shape embodied experience and reveal the complex systems that surround us.
