Short Bio:

Maya Kosover (she/her) is a community facilitator, artist, and educator based in Chicago. At the core of her work, Maya understands her artistic and teaching practice to be a spiritual practice, all in service of kinship and thriving futures with all beings. Maya is currently the Director of Learning for Shomeret Shalom, a Co-Steward and Artist Collective Member at the Jewish Museum of Chicago, and a facilitator for Studio Pathways. Maya partners with various organizations and community groups to facilitate healing arts workshops for youth, teens and adults -- workshops that tend to our capacities for embodiment, connection, radical imagination, and creation. To learn more about Maya and her work, her learning lineages and communities, visit www.mayakosover.com.

Long Bio:

Maya Kosover (she/her) is a community facilitator, artist, and educator based in Chicago. I am committed to the arts as our bridge back to ourselves and each other through accessing authentic expression, connection, truth, repair, joy, play, and healing. 

My personal orientation for understanding what we’re up against is situated in a healing justice framework. Colonialism, racism, capitalism, patriarchy, ableism, homophobia and the others succeed when we are disembodied, disconnected, disillusioned, and destructive. The art I create and the spaces I facilitate invite us into healing by practicing the opposite: embodiment, connection, radical imagination, and creation. My dream is for every human to be tapped into and resourced by their innate creativity. I’m fascinated by our collective imagination and constantly gravitate toward what has yet to be created.

I am currently the Director of Learning for Shomeret Shalom, a Co-Steward and Artist Collective Member at the Jewish Museum of Chicago, and a facilitator for Studio Pathways. After teaching multi-media journalism and media studies at the public high school level for six years, I now facilitate art workshops for youth, teens and adults. Some of my collaborators include: Pushcart Judaica, Jewish Studio Project, Olive Tree Arts Network, Urban Gateways, Marwen, Institute for Jewish Spirituality, JCUA, If Not Now, Richmond Art Center, RYSE, and Teen Talk App.

I identify as a jewish, lesbian, community-taught artist with rich learning lineages, teachers, mentors, and communities of practice. I mostly work with paper as a multi-media collage artist and I love to explore embodied, performance, and ritual art. All I want to do is reclaim public space with other bodies through song & story, practice & play. My art explores my identities, ancestors, values, and dreams for generations to come. I am currently creating home in Chicago on the ancestral lands of the Council of the Three Fires: the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi Nations. To my knowledge, my ancestors come from Germany, Mexico, Spain, Poland, Azerbaijan, and Israel/Palestine.