Open Air: Artist Talk with Helina Metaferia

Open Air is a monthly series of virtual studio visits and intimate conversations with Black artists across the globe hosted by the Gantt. Open Air for April features artist Helina Metaferia.

Helina Metaferia is an interdisciplinary artist working across collage, assemblage, video, performance, and social engagement. Her work integrates archives, somatic studies, and dialogical practices, creating overlooked narratives that amplify BIPOC/femme bodies.

Metaferia received her MFA from Tufts University's School of the Museum of Fine Arts and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Recent solo exhibitions include Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA (2022); New York University's The Gallatin Galleries, New York, NY (2021); Michigan State University's Scene Metrospace Gallery, East Lansing, MI (2019); and Museum of African Diaspora, San Francisco, CA (2017). Metaferia's work is included in the Sharjah Biennial in the United Arab Emirates (2023), the Tennessee Triennial through the Frist Art Museum and Fisk University Art Gallery (2023), and group exhibitions at ICA San Francisco (2023) and Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (2019). Her work is in the permanent collection of institutions including Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; RISD Art Museum, Providence, RI; and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York, NY.

Metaferia's work has been supported by several residencies including MacDowell, Yaddo, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, and MASS MoCA. She is currently a 2021-2023 artist-in-residence at Silver Art Projects at the World Trade Center in New York City. Her work has been written about in publications including The New York Times, Financial Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Artnet News, and Hyperallergic. Metaferia is an Assistant Professor at Brown University in the Visual Art department, and lives and works in New York City.

Dexter Wimberly is an American curator based in Japan who has organized exhibitions in galleries and institutions around the world including the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City, The Green Family Art Foundation in Dallas, KOKI Arts in Tokyo, Bode Projects in Berlin, and The Third Line in Dubai. His exhibitions have been reviewed and featured in publications including The New York Times and Artforum; and have received support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and The Kinkade Family Foundation. Wimberly is a Senior Critic at New York Academy of Art, and the founder and director of the Hayama Artist Residency in Japan. He is also the co-founder and CEO of the online education platform, CreativeStudy.