Martha Chason-Sokol

Speculative Futures: A Woven World

A Participatory Residency

May 1st - May 31st, 2026

Events:

Closing Reception

Saturday, May 30, 4-7pm

Linen Factory Open Studio

Friday, May 8, 4-8pm

Saturday, May 9, 12-5pm

Saturday, May 9th, 4pm - 5pm (last hour of open studio)

Performance featuring the ambient music of

Nova Darkstar's Guitar Galactica

Midday Conversations with Lite Bites

Thursdays, May 7, 14, 21

12:30pm

Speculative Futures: A Woven World is a site-specific evolving installation that brings together hybrid sculptures, light, shadow, and human presence to explore how past, present, and speculative futures coexist.

The sculptural beings, created from discarded domestic and industrial objects that are wrapped, woven and bound with thread and tape, feel alive, held together, rather than resolved. They are created from materials that are accessible, bar stools, kitchen colanders, prescription pill bottles, sometimes visible, sometimes not. The gallery becomes an immersive environment, where visitors walk among the sculptures and are woven into their world.

This new world, created at MAPSpace during Chason-Sokol’s residency and populated by hybrid beings, embodies past, present, and future. Video captures the process and is projected onto the gallery walls, reflecting the shifting realities of the space. As these cyborg beings travel to other public spaces, imagined places come into being, created through the connection of sculpture, human presence, and moving image.

Martha Chason-Sokol (she/hers)

Martha Chason-Sokol is an interdisciplinary artist working between studio and public life. She builds gestural figural sculptures from discarded domestic and industrial objects and places them in site-specific installations to create accessible participatory art in community spaces. Chason-Sokol binds the past into new, speculative futures using tape, thread, and video. Past, present and futures merge both through the embodied hybrid creatures and the human presence captured in person and on video.

Chason-Sokol is an associate member of Kingston Gallery, and Chair of the Everett Cultural Council. She has exhibited at the Boston Sculptors Gallery, the Hudson Valley Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Fitchburg Art Museum, among others. Chason-Sokol holds a Bachelor’s degree from Brandeis University and a Master of Fine Arts from Lesley University College of Art and Design.

After moving to Everett, MA. in June 2020, Chason-Sokol became aware that there was no designated art space in the city. Having taught for over 30 years in non-traditional settings Chason-Sokol envisioned a community art space that would provide the joy and healing of creative art experiences. She founded Art Lab Everett in 2021, and since then ALE has offered arts opportunities to residents of Everett and the neighboring towns regardless of ability to pay.

Nova Darkstar (they/them)

Nova Darkstar is a multidisciplinary artist and musician committed to community building as an art form and art as a form of community building. Their work explores themes of identity and belonging in the LGBTQ2IA+ community and beyond, and the ways in which experiences at the margins of US culture can instigate new social realities. Nova's multimedia projects are collaborative in nature, inviting viewers to actively participate in the work and help bring it to fruition.

Nova holds an MFA in Visual Art from Lesley University and an MA in Counseling Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies. Nova Darkstar & their Invisible Band spread queer joy by performing original dance music throughout the northeast. Additionally, Nova Darkstar's Guitar Galatica performs site-responsive, ambient, improvised music. I Dream a Prom Queen, a short documentary made in collaboration with Tania Barricklo, was an official selection for the 2024 New York Transgender Film Festival. Color Me Trans, a coloring book for teens and adults, was published in March 2025. Nova was the instigator of Happy 80th, Marsha!, a collaborative series of events in Kingston, NY, in August 2025 that celebrated the life and legacy of trans icon Marsha P. Johnson. Recent gallery exhibitions include Taking Shape, a solo exhibit at the DRAW Gallery (Kingston, NY - forthcoming), My Home is Your Home, a solo exhibit at M Galleries PNA (Washington, NJ) and group shows at Roxbury Arts Alliance (Succasunna, NJ), Gallery RAG (Gloucester, MA), and WAAM (Woodstock, NY).

Artwork photos: Julia Featheringill, except where noted.