One hundred seats.
One night.
One chance to be part of something singular.
Beyond the Canvas
An Immersive Evening Celebrating Transformation + Future Making
Featuring Woodswoman: Earthseed by Saya Woolfalk
Thursday, June 4, 2026, 5:30pm
The New Children’s Museum
Some evenings ask you to attend. This one asks you to participate.
Beyond the Canvas is an intimate gathering of 100 guests—advocates, artists, and fellow believers in what art can do—celebrating the opening of Woodswoman: Earthseed, a new contemporary art installation by acclaimed artist Saya Woolfalk. Part immersive experience, part fundraising event, the evening is designed around a single belief: that transformation doesn’t happen in crowds. It happens in circles.
This is not a night to watch from a distance. Every guest becomes part of the story.
Inspired by the philosophy of Octavia E. Butler’s Earthseed series that the only lasting truth is change and Woolfalk’s own participatory practice, guests will enjoy an artist reception, tour the new exhibit, and enjoy an immersive dinner experience with an artist talk back.
Proceeds from Beyond the Canvas support The New Children’s Museum’s mission to bring transformative contemporary art to new audiences—children, families, and communities who deserve to encounter art that asks something of them, and gives something back.
Tickets are limited to 100 guests for this intimate evening. We hope you’ll be one of them.
Support this event
Sponsorship and Honorary Committee are available.
For more information, reach out to Julia Barnes (she/her), Director of Development at jbarnes@thinkplaycreate.org
Featured Artist
Saya Woolfalk (she/her)
Born 1979, Japan
Lives and works in New York
Saya Woolfalk is a New York–based artist whose work uses science fiction and fantasy to imagine new worlds and ways of being. Through multi-year projects such as No Place, The Empathics, and ChimaTEK, she has developed the narrative of the Empathics, a fictional race of women who can alter their genetic makeup and merge with plant life. Across sculpture, installation, video, and performance, Woolfalk explores themes of cultural hybridity, transformation, and the utopian possibilities of the future.
Her work has been exhibited internationally at institutions including the Montclair Art Museum, the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, the SCAD Museum of Art, and the Everson Museum of Art, among many others. Woolfalk’s work is held in major collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Seattle Art Museum, and the Newark Museum of Art. She teaches in the MFA program at Yale School of Art and is represented by Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects in New York.
Thank you to our Event Partners
