When the Kimball Art Center opens its doors at its new space at The Yard next week, visitors will have the opportunity to explore a new exhibit, “When Evening Has Passed and Tomorrow Comes.”

The art show features the works of four cutting-edge artists — Ruby Onyinyechi Amanze, Nicola López, Cauleen Smith and Saya Woolfalk — who hook into fantasy and science fiction to create fictional worlds that question the human ways of seeing and being, said Kimball Art Center Curator Nancy Stoaks.

“We really connected with the works of these artists,” Stoaks said. “They’re world builders in a sense, and imagine what our future can look like in a powerful, interesting and creative way that allows us to think critically about where we are now and where we want to go.”

The idea for the exhibit started last year, when Aldy Milliken arrived in Park City as the Kimball Art Center’s new executive director.

“Once Aldy came on board, we looked at what our exhibition program was like and what kinds of exhibitions we were excited to present for our community,” Stoaks said. “Going back to last fall and thinking about the things we were dealing with regarding COVID-19 and the social crises throughout the year, we thought an exhibit that thinks about our future would be so powerful.”

Stoaks was drawn to the artists’ alternate universes that reconsider identities, histories and geographies.

“There is also a lot of positivity in their work that allows us to dream and imagine about where we want to go and how we will get there,” she said.

The exhibit, which will take up all four of the Kimball Art Center gallery spaces, will feature 25 works in total, according to Stoaks.

“There are large-scale installations and immersive experiences that utilize video, projection and sound,” she said. “There is printmaking, drawing, film, installation and sculpture. So it’s a great mix, and the kinds of experiences this exhibition creates will wow people.”

One of the pieces is an experimental film by filmmaker Cauleen Smith, whose feature film “Drylongso” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 1999.

“She’s known for her experimental films that she has been making for the past 20 years,” Stoaks said. “Her work has most recently been at the Whitney Museum in New York and at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. And we’re so fortunate to have her work be a part of this show.”

“When Evening Has Passed and Tomorrow Comes,” which will be showing through June 13, was put together specifically for the Kimball Art Center’s opening.

While Smith is based in Los Angeles, Woolfalk and Onyinyechi Amanze hail from the East Coast, and López, who lives in New York, is waiting out the coronavirus pandemic in Santa Fe, New Mexico, according to Stoaks.

“We connected with each of the artists and talked about the kind of work we were interested in for this show,” she said. “They have been amazing collaborators.”

The Kimball Art Center’s new exhibit space also proved inspirational for Stoaks and the exhibit.

“The overall gallery space is a little larger than what we had at our old space, and since there are more walls, our capacity to put together larger and more significant shows has been enhanced,” she said. “This space creates such possibility for the kind of shows we want to do, the kind of stories we want to tell and the kind of experiences we want to create.”

“When Evening Has Passed and Tomorrow Comes” is the first Kimball Art Center exhibit since COVID-19 shut the town down a year ago, and social distancing and mask wearing will be required of visitors, students and staff while on-site.

“(Still) it feels good to see art again in person and have that relationship with works on the wall or works that surround you,” Stoaks said. “It’s a different experience than reading about it or looking at it on the computer, and there is a comfort that art provides. It also helps you to look at things from different perspectives.”