Saya Woolfalk
2026-2027 THOMAS SCHROTH VISITING ARTIST SERIES
Saya Woolfalk
Oct. 14-17, 2026
Interdisciplinary Artist
Collaborators: Taryn McMahon, Kristen Mimms Scavnicky, Darren Bade
New York-based artist Saya Woolfalk creates work that blends science fiction, anthropology and biology to explore how we see ourselves and the world around us.
Her four-day residency at Kent State will bring together students and faculty from the College of the Arts and the College of Architecture and Environmental Design for a workshop, roundtable discussion, graduate studio visits and a free public lecture.
"Woods Woman Method" Workshop & Roundtable
Registration required | Limited to students and faculty
Woolfalk will lead participants in her "Woods Woman Method" — a guided exercise in slowing down and seeing a place through fresh eyes.
The group will walk along the Cuyahoga River with Kent State Professor of Biological Sciences Darren Bade, recording what they see, hear, smell and feel through drawing and writing. Afterward, participants will return to the Center for Visual Arts for a catered break and a roundtable discussion, sharing their observations alongside faculty from Art, Architecture and Environmental Design, and Art History.
Registration details forthcoming.
Graduate Studio Visits
Limited to graduate students
Woolfalk will meet individually with graduate students for 30-minute studio visits, offering feedback on works in progress.
Details forthcoming.
Public Lecture
Free and open to the public | Date, time and location forthcoming
Woolfalk will deliver a free public lecture open to the Kent State community and the general public. Details will be announced as they are confirmed.
About Saya Woolfalk
b. Gifu City, Japan, 1979; lives in Brooklyn, New York
Saya Woolfalk uses science fiction and fantasy to re-imagine the world in multiple dimensions. With the multi-year projects No Place, The Empathics, and ChimaTEK, Woolfalk has created the world of the Empathics, a fictional race of women who are able to alter their genetic make-up and fuse with plants. With each body of work, Woolfalk continues to question the utopian possibilities of cultural hybridity. Her midcareer survey show Empathic Universe was presented at the Museum of Arts and Design in 2025, and willt ravel to the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery in 2027 and the Hunter Museum of American Art in 2026.
Woolfalk has had solo exhibitions at numerous institutions including, among others, the Museum of Arts and Design, New York; Crow Museum of Asian Art, Dallas, TX; Newark Museum of Art, NJ; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO; Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, OH; Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ; the Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia; the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco; Savannah College of Art and Design Museum, Savannah, GA; Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York; and the Mead Museum of Art, Amherst, Massachusetts. She has participated in group shows at the Studio Museum in Harlem; MoMA PS1, Long Island City, NY; the Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA., the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, among many others. Her works are in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art; the Mead Art Museum, the Weatherspoon Art Museum; the Newark Museum of Art; the Chrysler Museum of Art; the Seattle Art Museum, and many others. Woolfalk is represented by Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects, New York. She teaches in the MFA and BFA programs at Parsons: The New School for Design.