A special event as part of Helina Metaferia’s solo exhibition all put together at Praise Shadows Art Gallery, the artist will activate the gallery space with a multi-part wearable sculptural performance titled The Willing, consisting of a brass crown inspired by her Ethiopian heritage decorated with archival etchings. The live performance will also feature a wearable tapestry made from silkscreen prints also using archival images and other ready-made objects.
Following the performance, Metaferia will be joined by Nikki A. Greene, Associate Professor of Art History at Wellesley College, for a conversation about her practice and the exhibition.
This event is free to the public, but advanced registration is required. Guests are encouraged to move around the exhibition during the performance. Seating will be available for the Artist’s Talk.
- 6:00pm: Doors open for guests to view the exhibition.
- 6:20pm: Performance begins (25 minutes)
- 6:45pm: 15 minute intermission
- 7:00pm: Artist’s Talk with Nikki A. Green begins followed by Q&A
- 7:40pm: Program concludes
Helina Metaferia received her MFA from Tufts University’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Her solo exhibition Generations is currently on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston through April 11, 2022. Other recent solo and group exhibitions include Museum of African Diaspora, San Francisco; Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Detroit; New York University’s The Gallatin Galleries, New York City; Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY; CF Hill, Stockholm Sweden; Modern Art Museum Gebre Kristos Desta Centre, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; and Alabama Contemporary Art Center, Mobile, AL, among many others. Metaferia’s work has been supported by several artist residencies including MacDowell, Yaddo, Bemis, MASS MoCA, and Triangle Arts Association. She was a participant of the 2021 Drawing Center’s Viewing Program, and is currently an Artist in Residence at Silver Art Projects at the World Trade Center in New York. Helina is currently an Assistant Professor in the Visual Art department at Brown University, and she lives and works in New York City.
Nikki A. Greene is Associate Professor of Art History at Wellesley College, and a Visiting Scholar at the Cogut Institute for the Humanities at Brown University, as one of the inaugural New England Humanities Consortium’s Faculty of Color Working Group Mellon Fellow for the 2021-22 academic year. She serves as an advisor to the ICA Boston for the 59th Venice Biennale presenting the work of Simone Leigh for the United States Pavilion in 2022. She has written for numerous art museums, including The Studio Museum in Harlem, The Guggenheim Museum, The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery. Her forthcoming book Grime, Glitter, and Glass: The Body and The Sonic in Contemporary Black Art (Duke University Press, 2023), features artists Renée Stout, Radcliffe Bailey, and María Magdalena Campos-Pons.
