Event Description
Chat About: Maya Janine D’Costa is an exhibition in conjunction with the event Chat About: Sara Rhoades and Maya Janine D’Costa, March 25, 2026. In their conversation, Maya and Sara will discuss Surrealism, subconscious making, hope, chance, and magic. With this, they hope to foster a friendly conversation that reveals the connection between art, abstraction, social practice, and everyday life.
Artist
Maya Janine D’Costa is an interdisciplinary artist from India, now pursuing an MFA at the University of Chicago. Their curiosity is the ambiguity and temporality in life and art making. In engaging with material in the studio, seeming realities and abstractions of daily living become ethereal pieces. Maya received a Bachelors of Art and Design at the Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology in Bangalore, India. They have worked in rural Madhya Pradesh, India as an artist, researcher and animator with the NGO Samaj Pragati Sahayog. They have exhibited at, and received grant support from: Kochi Biennale, Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art in Delhi, whiteBOX and Werksviettel-Mitte Kunst in Munich, and India Foundation for the Arts, Murphy Town Market, Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath, Goethe Institut, and taught art at St. Alphonsus School, all in Bangalore.
Support
This exhibition is part of the 2025 Chat About x CWAC Exhibitions series. Chat About is a student-run open-critique supported by the Department of Visual Arts and the Department of Art History. Special thank you to Maya D’Acosta, Christian Bumala, and Feifei Wang, Chat About organizers. Installation support and preparation provided by Maya Janine D’Costa, Yutao Qian and Ruoxuan Yuan. Didactic text authored by Sara Rhoades.
Accessibility
CWAC Exhibitions is committed to accessibility for all our exhibitions. However, the second floor of the Cochrane-Woods Art Center is accessible only by stairs. To request an accommodation or alternative format, please email visualresources@uchicago.edu.