Helina Metaferia is an interdisciplinary artist working across performance, video, installation, collage, and social engagement. Through a hybrid of mediums, she tells overlooked stories that center Black bodies in positions of power and vulnerability. As a research based artist, her work is informed by written and oral archives, dialogical art, and somatic experiences. Her work interrogates complex histories of institutionalized oppression, and asks how it informs our personal experiences and interpersonal relationships. She often uses her own body as a medium in her practice, as well as the bodies of participants or collaborators in her community. 

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 and group exhibitions include Museum of African Diaspora, San Francisco, CA; Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Detroit, MI; New York University’s The Gallatin Galleries, New York, NY; and Modern Art Museum Gebre Kristos Desta Centre, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, among many others. Her solo exhibition, “Generations,” will open at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in Fall 2021 through April 2022. Metaferia’s work has been supported by several artist residencies including MacDowell, Yaddo, Bemis, MASS MoCA, and Triangle Arts Association. She is a participant of the 2021 Drawing Center’s Viewing Program. Her work has been featured in publications such as Hyperallergic, Artnet News, Financial Times, The Boston Globe, and The Washington Post. Helina is currently an Assistant Professor at Brown University, and lives and works in New York City.