Visionary Reality Outpost: Saya Woolfalk

Artist Saya Woolfalk (NY) works at the confluence of science fiction, anthropology, technology, and art to create a world that is simultaneously set in the future and the past.

Woolfalk was born in Japan to a Japanese mother and mixed-race father and raised in Scarsdale, New York. As such, she is thoughtful about using her hybrid identity in her practice, especially in relation to the contemporary transcultural influences occurring in a globalized world.

Since 2006, Woolfalk has been working on the creation of a fantastical population of beings called the Empathics. In her narrative, a group of women stumbled on a set of bones covered in fungi. The bones seemingly belonged to both the animal and the plant kingdoms. Over time—as the women were exposed to the bones—psychedelic visions caused a genetic alteration that fused their human DNA with that of plants. Seeking to spread the lessons of the Empathics, the women formed the Institute of Empathy, which created a corporation known as Chimatek.

For Visionary Reality Outpost, Woolfalk reimagines the gallery as a Chimatek complex where customers upload their personalities to the Chimacloud in order to download a more Empathic replacement, giving them an alternative future. The gallery will also be the site of a Chimatek factory for the production of new bodies to house these replacement futures. The factory will include objects made during Woolfalk’s Artist/Industry residency at the Kohler Co. factory.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.