As the first chapter of a multi-year initiative, Saya Woolfalk: the woodswoman method presents process materials from artist Saya Woolfalk’s inaugural commission for The Bronx Museum’s renovated main lobby, opening in 2027, alongside related works from the Museum’s permanent collection.

Woolfalk envisions the WoodsWoman as a mythic botanist-healer who inhabits the artist’s “Empathic Universe,” an imagined utopian future in which humans and nature exist in harmony and diverse cultural narratives are valued.

For The woodswoman method, Woolfalk applied the lens of the WoodsWoman to the Museum’s permanent collection—a unique holding of nearly 2,000 objects, focused primarily on contemporary artists of color and artists with ties to The Bronx. Woolfalk selected works by artists including Huma Bhabha, Robert Blackburn, Abigail DeVille, and Martin Wong that explore the cosmos, relationships between humans and nature, speculative worlds, and the role of collective storytelling in building community. For the first time, comprehensive records for works from the permanent collection featured in the exhibition are also available online, expanding public access to the Museum’s collection beyond its galleries.

Functioning as both an exhibition and a laboratory, The woodswoman method includes programming developed in collaboration with the Museum’s Education Department. These activities will invite audiences into Woolfalk’s creative process and help inform the development of her lobby commission. This project also builds on the Museum’s longstanding relationship with Woolfalk, who completed the 2009 cycle of its prestigious AIM Fellowship, a professional development program for rising artists based in New York City.