12 December, 2024: I am so very honored that my exhibition Numma Yah has been selected for this inspired list highlighting the city's year in art - read on Hyperallergic.

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Miatta Kawinzi, Numma Yah, 2024, process still (Dozoa / Providence Island, Liberia).

28 September - 17 November, 2024

Brooklyn, NY: I am honored to have a solo exhibition at Smack Mellon! I was also an artist-in-residence in the Studio Program there 2022-23, and am incredibly grateful for their support of my practice.

Numma Yah brings together immersive sculptural installation, soundscape, and projected moving image to reflect on root systems materially and conceptually. Informed by Kawinzi’s Liberian cultural heritage, this exhibition meditates on ideas around protection, inter-connectivity, embodied memory, and the lessons learned from plant life. The title is a Kolokwa (Liberianized English) phrase used to offer words of comfort, uplifting the necessity of creating spaces of soothing in the face of disconnection, and marking Kawinzi’s intention in the work to trace lines of physical and psychic diasporic reconnection and energetic flow. Curated by Rachel Vera Steinberg.

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Virtual Panel Discussion - On Memory & Liberia: A conversation with Miatta Kawinzi, Bilphena Decontee Yahwon & Essah Cozett Díaz
Saturday, November 9, 1PM EST, Zoom

Smack Mellon is thrilled to host an online conversation between exhibiting artist Miatta Kawinzi, along with Archive Liberia’s founder and steward Bilphena Decontee Yahwon and Anthology co-Editor Essah Cozett Díaz. This event continues ongoing conversations sparked in the collective study groups and convening activities held by Archive Liberia, through which the participants initially met, and extends these conversations to Smack Mellon’s audience. The discussion will explore notions of memory and history in relation to Liberia and its place in the African Diaspora, themes present also in Kawinzi’s concurrent exhibition, as well as the socio-political forces that shape memory, and the liberatory potential of reclamation.

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Panel Discussion - Inherited Medicine: Miatta Kawinzi and Madjeen Isaac in conversation with Erica N. Cardwell
Saturday, November 16, 4PM, Smack Mellon (new date)

Join us for a conversation at Smack Mellon between writer Erica N. Cardwell and artists Miatta Kawinzi and Madjeen Isaac on the occasion of their solo exhibitions. The conversation will explore the overlapping themes of home, diaspora, and inheritance excavated within each artist's respective practices and exhibitions.

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Opening Reception: Saturday, September 28, 6-8 PM
On View: Saturday, September 28 - Sunday, November 17
Gallery Hours: Wednesday - Sunday, 12-6 PM

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Press: Hyperallergic: "Six New York City Art Shows to See Right Now." 15 October, 2024

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Press Release | More info

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August 2024

NYC: I am thrilled to be selected as a 2024 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Interdisciplinary Work! I am excited for the peer recognition and to be part of a program that has supported artists of all disciplines across New York State for 39 years. Much gratitude to the panelists, NYSCA and NYFA, and congratulations to all the Fellows and Finalists!

More info

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Photo from the February 2024 opening of the presentation at Des Moines Art Center, IA.

9 September - 8 December, 2024

Boston, MA: The States of Becoming traveling exhibition curated by Fitsum Shebeshe and produced by Independent Curators International (ICI) continues its tour at McMullen Museum at Boston College. The presentation at the McMullen Museum has been organized in collaboration with faculty from Boston College’s African and African Diaspora Studies Program.

More info

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12 April - 29 June, 2024

Houston, TX: The Houston Museum of African American Culture (HMAAC) is thrilled to present Mami Wata Afrofuturism: 500 Years Back to the [Afro][f]uture, curated by HMAAC’s Chief Curator Christopher Blay. The exhibition envisions the future through the lens of the past and focuses on works by artists of the African Diaspora who consider the
transatlantic and trans-Mississippi delta journeys of black people across waters, carrying with them histories, mythologies, and cultures towards new futures.

The exhibition includes paintings, photography and digital painting on paper, photographs, video, and sculpture from the following artists: Arnold J. Browne, Carla Jay Harris, Lewinale Havette, Miatta Kawinzi, Abi Salami, Lakea Shepard, and Raymond Thompson.

Opening Reception is Friday, April 12, 6 - 8PM with a press and member preview from 5 - 6PM.

A conversation with the artists, moderated by Chief Curator Blay, will be on Saturday, April 13, at 2PM at HMAAC.

More info

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11 April - 18 May, 2024

Bronx, NY:

Hold me as I fly / Abrázame mientras vuelo

Exhibitors include Tuxamee, Iman Hill, Amari-Grey, Al-Wasi’ Collective, Miatta Kawinzi, Alicia Grullón, Maya Jeffereis and Ujamaa Earthseed Collective. Curated by asmara.

Opening Reception: Thursday, April 11, 6:30-8:30pm

BronxArtSpace
700 Manida Street (entrance on Spofford Ave)
Bronx, NY, 10474

More info

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February 2024

Gratitude to Melissa Lyde of Alfreda's Cinema for the thoughtful reflection on my film SHE GATHER ME in this article in MoMA Magazine exploring the legacy and impact of Black film.

Text reads: "Multidisciplinary artist Miatta Kawinzi’s She Gather Me was a discovery from a superb program at Maysles Documentary Center, curated by filmmaker Christopher Harris. For me, Miatta’s art exists in the space you inhabit when you close your eyes and drift into the in-between, a poetic invocation of levitating. She Gather Me is titled after a line from Toni Morrison’s Beloved, and invites witnesses into a refuge of remembrance. It was filmed over three years in New York and various locations around the world. Every detailed frame is filled with images and sounds that exude the fragrance of Miatta’s labor and love. I am deeply moved by her commitment to memorializing the brilliance of Black women, in film, song, science, and sacrifice. This work is already an iconic contribution to Black millennial women’s video art. —ML"

Full article

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10 February - 12 May, 2024

Des Moines, IA: The ICI-produced traveling group exhibition "States of Becoming" continues in Des Moines!

Opening Friday, 9 February, 5-7pm

Panel Discussion Sunday, 11 February, 1:30pm
Curator Fitsum Shebeshe will provide insight into the premise of the exhibition and introduce the work of 17 African artists working in the United States. Shebeshe will then be joined by Art Center Senior Curator Laura Burkhalter and featured artists Chukwudumebi Gabriel Amadi-Emina, Chido Johnson, and Miatta Kawinzi.

More info

Panelist photo: from left - Fitsum Shebeshe (Photo: Kei Ito), Chukwudumebi Gabriel Amadi-Emina, Chido Johnson, and Miatta Kawinzi.

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January 2024

I am honored and joyous to be selected for the 2024 Creative Capital Award in support of my upcoming experimental film "Lullabies for the Distance/d." Gratitude to Creative Capital and the jurors and congratulations to all in the cohort!

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December 2023

I am thrilled and grateful to receive a Harpo Foundation Visual Artist Grant to aid in the creation of new work!

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September through November, 2023

Brooklyn, NY: I am honored to be an artist-in-residence at the International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) for three months, with support from the Vision Fund.

Fall Open Studios | Fri, Nov 10th, 6-9pm & Sat, Nov 11th, 1-7pm

Artist Talk | Tues, Nov 28th, 6-8pm

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States of Becoming installation view, The Africa Center, New York, 2022. Courtesy of The Africa Center and ICI. Photo: Anita Ng.

22 September - 9 December, 2023

Baltimore, MD: The Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County hosts the touring exhibition States of Becoming, an exhibition that informs the discourse on identity construction within the African Diaspora. Curated by Fitsum Shebeshe, produced by Independent Curators International.

Artists: Gabriel C. Amadi-Emina, Kearra Amaya Gopee, Kibrom Araya, Nadia Ayari, Vamba Bility, Elshafei Dafalla, Masimba Hwati, Chido Johnson, Miatta Kawinzi, Dora King, Helina Metaferia, Nontsikelelo Mutiti, Yvonne Osei, Kern Samuel, Amare Selfu, Tariku Shiferaw, and Yacine Tilala Fall.

More info

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Installation view of works by Miatta Kawinzi and Tatiana Arocha in "in pieces..." at PS122 Gallery, NYC. Photo: Etienne Frossard.

10 June - 9 July, 2023 (extended!)

NYC: in pieces… is the culminating exhibition of Residency Unlimited's 2023 NYC-Based Artist Residency Program. Featured works by artists Abang-guard (Maureen Catbagan + Jevijoe Vitug), Tatiana Arocha, Miatta Kawinzi and Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow, are based in research on Little Manila in Woodside, Queens and the intersections of immigration, labor, and visibility; the coca plant, colonization, scientific discoveries of cocaine and the development of Coca-Cola; the entanglements between the United States and Liberia based on personal, national and transnational histories; and the interplay of sugar cane plantation slavery in Jamaica and the sugar industry in Scotland through testimonies of enslaved women.

The exhibition is curated by Rachel Raphaela Gugelberger and organized by Residency Unlimited.

Dates: Saturday, June 10 - Sunday, July 9, 2023
Location: PS122 Gallery, 150 1st Ave. (entrance on 9th St.)
New York, NY 10009
Hours: Thursday - Sunday, 1 - 6pm and by appointment
Exhibition Walk-through with the Artists and Curator: Saturday, June 10, 2:30pm
Opening Reception: Saturday, June 10, 4 - 6pm

More info

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22 & 23 April, 2023

Brooklyn, NY: Join us for the second Open Studios event with the 2022–23 Studio Artists, this time in conjunction with DUMBO Open Studios. Current artists-in-residence are Gi (Ginny) Huo, Miatta Kawinzi, Joseph Liatela, Kevin Quiles Bonilla, Ogemdi Ude, and Kiyan Williams.

Please note: masks are required to enter the lower level of our building where the artists’ studios are located.

Saturday, April 22, 1–6PM
Sunday, April 23, 1–6PM

Smack Mellon
92 Plymouth St
Brooklyn, NY 11201

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Miatta Kawinzi, to trust the air might hold us (leap), 2023.

April 2023

NYC: I am honored to be selected for the Residency Unlimited (RU) 2023 NYC-Based Artist Residency cohort, along with Abang-guard (Maureen Catbagan and Jevijoe Vitug), Tatiana Arocha, and Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow.

For artists who identify as Black, Indigenous and People of Color and who have research-based practices that fill in gaps in historical knowledge, these three-month residencies support the research and development of multi-disciplinary projects.

I will be drawing on personal, national, and transnational histories to think through U.S. - Liberia historical entanglements and pan-African freedom dreaming.

We will participate in a culminating group exhibition at PS122 Gallery in June.

Gratitude to the selection panel of three arts professionals: Elvira Clayton, Rachel Gugelberger and Dario Mohr.

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Installation view at the Africa Center, NYC.

14 October, 2022 - 2 April, 2023

NYC: States of Becoming is a traveling exhibition curated by Fitsum Shebeshe and produced by Independent Curators International (ICI), New York. It examines the dynamic forces of relocation, resettling, and assimilation that shape the artistic practices of a group of contemporary African artists working in the United States and informs the discourse on identity construction within the African Diaspora.

Shebeshe has united 17 artists who either came to the U.S. over the past thirty years or who are first-generation born, representing twelve countries in Africa and one in the Caribbean - Ethiopia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Liberia, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, and Zimbabwe – with roots in cities across the U.S. including New York, Washington, D.C., New Haven, Detroit, and Los Angeles.

Artists: Gabriel C. Amadi-Emina, Kearra Amaya Gopee, Kibrom Araya, Nadia Ayari, Vamba Bility, Elshafei Dafalla, Masimba Hwati, Chido Johnson, Miatta Kawinzi, Dora King, Helina Metaferia, Nontsikelelo Mutiti, Yvonne Osei, Kern Samuel, Amare Selfu, Tariku Shiferaw, and Yacine Tilala Fall.

The Africa Center
1280 5th Ave at 110th St
New York, NY 10029
Thurs - Sun, 11am - 6pm


The exhibition is touring with ICI 2022 - 2027 | More info

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Left: Still from “SHE GATHER ME” (2021) by Miatta Kawinzi. Right: Still from “Auction Block” (2020) by Africanus Okokon. Images courtesy of the artists.

13 February, 2023

NYC: Microscope is very pleased to present the first 2023 edition of our emerging series YES with a screening of works by Miatta Kawinzi and Africanus Okokon.

The roughly 60-minute program of works by Kawinzi and Okokon address colonial histories and the African diaspora, from the looting of artifacts to the eradication of languages, as well as the sense of uprooting and fragmentation caused by forced displacement. The artists also share an interest in analog technologies such as 16mm film, cassette tapes, and synthesizers, as well as in the spoken or sung word, which is often altered or reprocessed to become part of their soundtracks.

Miatta Kawinzi and Africanus Okokon will be available for a Q&A following the screening.

Monday, 13 February, 2023
7:30pm
Microscope Gallery
525 West 29th Street, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10001

More info/tickets

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Miatta Kawinzi, SHE GATHER ME, 2021, still.

12 February, 2023

Los Angeles, CA: Wayward Waters: Black Cinema & The Atlantic — Fragments of Diaspora: Shorts Selections - A program of experimental shorts materializing Black aesthetics as a remapping of relationships between people, history, environments, and movement.

Sarah Maldoror’s poetic documentary on Négritude on the poet Léon G. Damas (1994), Miatta Kawinzi’s meditative SHE GATHER ME (2021), and Ephraim Asili’s Many Thousands Gone (2014) rely on music and the sonic in their approach to Black expressive culture and diasporic connections. Disrupting and reshaping visual form, Chris Harris’s Halimuhfack (2016), Suné Woods’s Argonite Stars (2022) and João Vieira Torres’s Toré (2015) play with visibility and concealment in their methods of cinematic incantation, engaging ritual and ceremonial practices. Taken together, these six short films rupture and repair geographies of Black life.

Programmed by Yasmina Price, Guest Curator, film critic and scholar. Programming assistance by Matazi Weathers, Assistant Curator of Film at LACMA. Co-presented by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) with the Pan African Film Festival. Followed by a post-screening conversation with artist Suné Woods, artist-scholar Zama Dube, Matazi Weathers, and Yasmina Price.

Sunday, 12 February, 2023 | 3pm | Pan African Film Festival
Cinemark Baldwin Hills Crenshaw & XD
4020 Marlton Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90008

Tickets/more info

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18 & 19 November, 2022

NYC: Join us on Friday, Nov 18, 6-8 PM, for Smack Mellon Fall Open Studios and for our upcoming exhibition opening receptions! Open Studios continues on Saturday, Nov 19, 1-6 PM, during the exhibition’s open hours. Please note: proof of vaccination and masks are required to enter the lower level of our building where the artists’ studios are located.

Current artists-in-residence are Gi (Ginny) Huo, Joseph Liatela, Kevin Quiles Bonilla, Kiyan Williams, Miatta Kawinzi, and Ogemdi Ude.

Smack Mellon
92 Plymouth St
Brooklyn, NY 11201

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November 2022

Peterborough, NH: I am so honored to be selected for a MacDowell Fellowship!

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19 October, 2022

NYC: In partnership with Astra House and Brittle Paper, The Africa Center presents, Becoming: Art & Narrative with Vanessa A. Bee, Hannah Giorgis and Miatta Kawinzi. This hybrid (in-person and virtual options available) program will be moderated by Yolanda Sangweni, NPR’s Vice President of Programming & New Content Development. Author Vanessa A. Bee will join fellow writer Hannah Giorgis and Miatta Kawinzi, an artist whose work is featured in States of Becoming, to discuss themes of migration and the immigrant experience through Bee’s newly released memoir, Home Bound. The conversation will explore how art and narrative represent the complexities of becoming and its many states through different but interrelated aesthetic practice.

Wednesday, October 19, 2022 | 6 - 8PM
The Africa Center
1280 5th Ave
New York, NY 10029

More info/register

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September 2022

NYC: I'm so grateful to be selected for this residency -

We’re thrilled to announce our 2022-23 Studio Artists! From across the City, and representing a diverse array of practices, the artists will be in residence at Smack Mellon from September 1, 2022 through August 15, 2023. Join us in welcoming our incoming cohort of Studio Artists:

Kevin Quiles Bonilla
Gi (Ginny) Huo
Miatta Kawinzi
Joseph Liatela
Ogemdi Ude
Kiyan Williams

The 2022-23 Studio Artists were selected by panelists: Chloë Bass, Artist & Public Practitioner, Alison Burstein, Curator at The Kitchen, and Gabriel de Guzman, Director of Arts & Chief Curator at Wave Hill. Preliminary Panelists included former Studio or Exhibition Artists: Patricia Encarnación, Tamara Kostianovsky, Christie Neptune, Rowan Renee, Ginger Brooks Takahashi, and Ezra Wube.

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Miatta Kawinzi, SHE GATHER ME, 2021, Still.

23 September, 2022

NYC: I'm honored to be included in this program -

WATERPROOF
A look into the polarizing attributes of Water as a conduit in the Black experience. Guest programmed by Melissa Lyde, co-presented by Alfreda's Cinema.

TOWARDS THE COLONIES by Myriam Charles. 2016. 5 min.
WATER RITUAL by Barbara McCullough. 1979. 6 min.
MAMAN BRIGITTE by Ayanna Dozier. 2021. 3 min.
SHE GATHER ME by Miatta Kawinzi. 2021. 11 min.
WATERFALLS by F. Gary Gray. 1995. 4 min.
NEGRO BAPTISM filmed by Reverend S. S. Jones. mid-1920s. 1 min.
FOR OUR GIRLS by Imani Dennison & Michele Stephenson. 2021. 10 min.

Thanks to Third World Newsreel.

Friday, September 23, 2022
9:30 pm at Arverne Cinema, part of Rockaway Film Fest
More info/tickets

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18 August, 2022

I am honored for my piece sweat/tears/sea to be mentioned in this review - The Art of Pain and Discomfort - by Claudia Ross of the inter-generational group exhibition The Condition of Being Addressable at ICA, Los Angeles, curated by Legacy Russell and Marcelle Joseph and on view until 4 September, 2022.

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29 July, 2022

NYC: I am thrilled for my film SHE GATHER ME to be screening in this program on Friday, 29 July celebrating the work of Christopher Harris alongside the work of other filmmakers.

Prismatic Ground Presents: Christopher Harris at Maysles Documentary Center
Co-Presented by Canyon Cinema

Broken Tongue | Monica Savirón, 2013, 3 min.
Mainly made with images from the January 1st issues of “The New York Times” since its beginning in 1851 to 2013, BROKEN TONGUE is a heartfelt tribute to avant-garde sound performer Tracie Morris's poem “Afrika”. -Monica Savirón

Shove it Over | Zora Neale Hurston, 1939, 3 min. (audio)

Crow Requiem | Cauleen Smith, 2015, 11 min.
A Speculation: Humans are estranged from our origins. We left the commonwealth of Animals and declared ourselves the custodians of that dominion. And now We are Man; and all else is Other. Our knowledge of ourselves is a fog that consumes us. We cannot see past it, because we do not want to look into it. There are more than two points of view, but the fog makes it difficult to see. This is a sad song, a blues song, an elegy for the past sphere of consciousness we abandoned in favor of eating our own young. -Cauleen Smith

Crow Dance | Zora Neale Hurston, 1939, 2 min. (audio)

Halimuhfack | Christopher Harris, 2016, 4 min.
A performer lip-syncs to archival audio featuring the voice of author and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston as she describes her method of documenting African American folk songs in Florida.

Astro Black: Race for Space | Soda Jerk, 2010, 6 min.
Titled in tribute to Sun Ra’s 1972 album, Astro Black is an ongoing multi-channel video cycle informed by the history of sampling and the cultural theories of Afrofuturism. Taking the cosmic jazz musician Sun Ra as a point of departure, this speculative history seeks to draw out the nexus of science fiction and social politics in Black Atlantic culture. This episode of Soda Jerk’s Astro Black video cycle considers the origins and politics of Sun Ra's Afrofuturist mythology. -Soda Jerk

Uncle Bud | Zora Neale Hurston, 1939, 3 min. (audio)

The Red Album or a Poetic Intent | Miryam Charles, 2019, 5 min.
Following a crushing defeat, a group of vigilantes get together to record an album of revolutionary songs.

SHE GATHER ME | Miatta Kawinzi, 2021, 11 min.
SHE GATHER ME, titled after a line from Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved, is a poetic meditation on the resonance of different physical and mental landscapes of the African Diaspora. Through analog and digital film, video, and audio, this piece presents alternative ways of considering place and the search for a space of belonging & refuge. -Miatta Kawinzi

Program followed by a conversation between Christopher Harris and writer/programmer Yasmina Price.

Tickets

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9 July, 2022

NYC: The Center for Art, Research and Alliances (CARA) is pleased to announce Conjurings, three weekends of free public programs shaped by scholars, artists, musicians, writers, machines, and multiple forms of intelligences and undefinable disciplines.

Our guiding question is: How do we dream not only about ourselves? That is to say, to dream not only about ourselves, but about each other, about beings of the forest, of water, of animals, buildings, shelter—of concrete or invisible beings as porous interdependent entities reliant on each other and everything around us.

Curated and organized by Erika Sprey, Lamin Fofana, Sky Hopinka, Emmy Catedral, and Manuela Moscoso.

I am honored to be performing during Conjuring #1 -

Saturday, 9 July, 2022
1-6pm — Lamin Fofana, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Robin D.G. Kelley, Wanda Phipps, Miatta Kawinzi

7pm-12am — JJJJerome Ellis, ray ferreira, DeForrest Brown, Jr.

Masks required. RSVP // full schedule.

CARA
225 West 13th Street
New York, NY 10011

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Summer 2022

NYC: I am honored to be teaching at the School of Visual Arts in the MFA Art Practice program.

I will be giving a lecture on my work on Tuesday, 28 June at 12:30pm.

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Installation view, The Condition of Being Addressable, Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, June 18–September 11, 2022. Photo: Elon Schoenholz/ICA LA.

18 June - 4 September, 2022

Los Angeles, CA: I am honored that my piece sweat/tears/sea is included in this group exhibition curated by Legacy Russell and Marcelle Joseph.

The Condition of Being Addressable is a group exhibition that brings together an international and intergenerational roster of 25 artists whose work constitutes an ongoing exploration of bodies in exposure and the ever-evolving performance of language. The participating artists situate the body as a site of address—one to name, to call, to speak toward, to challenge, to redress—and question how the exchange between viewer and subject impacts the social and physical movements of bodies and how they are seen in the world.

Artists:
Hannah Black
Judy Chicago
Aria Dean
Anaïs Duplan
Caspar Heinemann
Lubaina Himid
E. Jane
Clotilde Jiménez
Miatta Kawinzi
Mary Kelly
Lynn Hershman Leeson
Tiona Nekkia McClodden
Ana Mendieta
Ad Minoliti
Troy Montes-Michie
Toyin Ojih Odutola
Athena Papadopoulos
Imran Perretta
Sondra Perry
Tschabalala Self
Lorna Simpson
Sin Wai Kin
Diamond Stingily
Jessica Vaughn
Zadie Xa

More info.

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Logo by Kelsey Kaptur, based on the work of Barbara Hammer.

May 2022

NYC: I am honored that my film SHE GATHER ME is included in Prismatic Ground, a NYC film festival centered on experimental documentary and avant-garde film, co-hosted by Maysles Documentary Center and media partner Screen Slate. The fest runs May 4 - 8, 2022 in-person and online. Gratitude to Inney Prakash for the invitation.

My film will screen in wave 3: the memory of a memory at 6pm on Thursday, May 5 at Maysles Documentary Center, 343 Malcolm X Blvd, New York, NY 10027. Followed by filmmaker Q&A.

wave 3: the memory of a memory
- Vecino Vecino (Camila Galaz, 21 min.)
- We Knew How Beautiful They Were, These Islands (Younes Ben Slimane, 21 min.)
- SHE GATHER ME (Miatta Kawinzi, 12 min.)
- Three Songs without Z. (Karthik Pandian, Andros Zins-Browne, 35 min. | Co-presented by Triple Canopy)
- What We Shared (Kamila Kuc, 69 min.)

Tickets.

Full festival access/line-up.

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29 April, 2022

NYC: I am thrilled to be invited by Paolo Javier to perform at this event in conjunction with Raúl Cordero's THE POEM, a Times Square Arts public art installation on view April 8 - May 4, 2022. Playing with the architecture and energy of Times Square, Cordero offers us a respite from the attention economy in the form of poetry and nature.

This event is emceed by former Queens Borough Poet Laureate Paolo Javier, to be broadcast live by Montez Press Radio (Thomas Laprade and Stacy Skolnik). The night will feature performances by poet/curator Paolo Javier and electronic artist Listening Center (aka David Mason), comedic performer Morgan Bassichis, and writer and artist Miatta Kawinzi.

Friday April 29th, 6-7pm
Times Square | Duffy Square, 46th St and Broadway
NYC

More info & full programming details here.

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March 2022

Ann Arbor, MI: I am so thrilled that my film SHE GATHER ME has been selected for the 60th Ann Arbor Film Festival, the oldest avant-garde and experimental film fest in North America! The fest will run March 22-27 in-person and online. My film will screen in the 5:15pm block on Friday, March 25th at the Michigan Theater, Ann Arbor, MI.

Films in Competition 7
- Her Glass Flower House (Katharine Fry)
- Inconsolable (Michel Pavlou)
- Thinner than Two Ten-thousandths of a Millimetre (Gregor Eldarb)
- AI and I (Cecelia Condit)
- Irani Bag (Maryam Tafakory)
- SHE GATHER ME (Miatta Kawinzi)

Tickets

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I am incredibly honored that my film received the No. 1 African Film Award in the fest! Many thanks to the festival, the jurors Mariam Ghani, Gina Kamentsky, and Thomas Renoldner, and the endowment of Amy J. Moore.

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16 November, 2021

Purchase, NY & Virtual: Please join us for weekly visiting artist lectures hosting noted artists, curators, critics, and historians to share their perspectives, expertise, and current work, and to give insight into contemporary issues facing artists and designers.

Please join us for Miatta Kawinzi’s lecture on Zoom.

Tuesday, November 16, 2021
5:00 PM ET

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November 2021

New Orleans, LA: I am honored that my latest film SHE GATHER ME has been selected for the 32nd New Orleans Film Festival which will be held virtually Nov 5th - 21st and in-person Nov 5th - 14th!

The in-person screening is in Experimental Shorts: Cinema Reset on Saturday, November 6th, 8:30 PM at Broad Theater in New Orleans.

Experimental Shorts: Cinema Reset
- May, June, July (Kevin Jerome Everson)
- SHE GATHER ME (Miatta Kawinzi)
- bustitOpen (Danielle Deadwyler)

Virtual & in-person tickets are available here.

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Fall 2021

Ithaca, NY: I am honored to be the Teiger Mentor in the Arts/Visiting Critic at Cornell University for the Fall 2021 semester where I am teaching a Graduate Seminar in Contemporary Theory & Art and conducting a series of critiques with MFA & BFA students.

I will additionally be giving a lecture on my work on Thursday, September 30, 2021 entitled Notes on Possibility.

Article: Miatta Kawinzi Illuminates Spaces of Connection and Possibility Across Place, Space, and Time.

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9 August, 2021

Fire Island, NY: BOFFO welcomes guest artist Miatta Kawinzi to share her work and process with the Fire Island community. In conjunction with Kiyan Williams’ BOFFO Residency Fire Island.
6:30 pm ET at Whyte Hall & on Zoom.

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5 August, 2021

CUE Executive Director Corina Larkin, Board Members Ted Berger and Lilly Wei, and artists Miatta Kawinzi and Kambui Olujimi join the Brooklyn Rail contributor Ann C. Collins for a conversation. We conclude with a poetry reading by Miatta Kawinzi.

1pm ET via Zoom.

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June 2021

I am incredibly honored and thrilled to be a 2021 New York Artadia Awardee!

From the Artadia press release:
Artadia, a nonprofit grant making organization and nationwide community of visual artists, curators, and patrons, is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2021 New York Artadia Awards: Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme (Basel and Ruanne), Caroline Garcia, and Miatta Kawinzi.

This cycle’s jurors were Marcela Guerrero, Jennifer Rubio Associate Curator, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and Makeda Best, Curator of Photography, Harvard Art Museums. Of the process, Marcela notes, “Miatta, Caroline and Basel and Ruanne were ultimately selected as the New York Artadia Awardees as they showed rigor while also making space for experimentality. If the art practice of these three is an indication of where the field of contemporary art is going, I feel both at ease and excited.”

Of the Awardees, Makeda states, “Overall, I was impressed by the deep and ethical commitments to new forms of collaboration and engagements with audiences. The destabilized notions of identity, language, and space that is proposed, embodied, politicized, and empowered by the work Basel and Ruanne is captivating and prophetic. Through spare means, Miatta Kawinzi captivatingly evokes the sound- and textscapes of the black experience that span time and geography. I was moved by the aesthetics of Caroline Garcia’s work – which draws on her nuanced sense of timing, eye for cultural details, understanding of corporally based modes of communication, and exploitation of the technological glitch.”

Full press release

First-round jurors also included Ndubuisi C. Ezeluomba, Francoise Billion Richardson Curator of African Art, New Orleans Museum of Art and Kim Nguyen, Curator, CCA Wattis, San Francisco.

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4 May, 2021

I am thrilled for my solo exhibition Soft is Strong to be included in Hyperallergic's "Your Concise New York Art Guide for May 2021," by Dessane Lopez Cassell & Cassie Packard.

The write-up reads:
"A warm, patient embrace of an exhibition, Miatta Kawinzi’s Soft is Strong offers a balm for the frazzle and fragmentation of the present. Fittingly titled, the exhibition mulls ideas of belonging, hybridity, and regeneration across media, its references rooted in the literary traditions of Black feminism. SHE GATHER ME (2021), Kawinzi’s video installation titled after a line from Toni Morrison’s Beloved, is a particular highlight. Catch it before it’s gone."

Read here.

Special thanks to Dessane Lopez Cassell.

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Miatta Kawinzi, River City (detail), 2021. Photographic diptych, cotton thread, cowrie shell, dimensions variable. For Breonna Taylor.


Miatta Kawinzi: Soft is Strong
Curator-Mentor: Ronny Quevedo
April 8 – May 12, 2021


CUE Art Foundation is pleased to present Soft is Strong, a solo exhibition by Miatta Kawinzi, curated and mentored by Ronny Quevedo. Kawinzi employs multimedia installation, video, and prints to consider conditions of fragmentation, multiplicity, and softness within the African diaspora as sites for belonging, possibility, and regeneration. Born in the Southern United States to a Liberian mother and Kenyan father, the New York-based artist’s work explores cultural hybridity, motifs of doubling, and linguistic experimentation in conversation with Black feminist literary traditions, uplifting a poetics of liberation that simultaneously holds space for loss while imagining paths towards reparation and renewal. This is the artist’s first institutional solo show in New York.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a 32-page color catalogue, with texts by Miatta Kawinzi, Ronny Quevedo, and Adeola Olakiitan. The catalogue will be available online and free of charge to gallery visitors. For more information please contact Programs Director Lilly Hern-Fondation at lilly@cueartfoundation.org.

Full press release


Opening Reception with Miatta Kawinzi and Ronny Quevedo
Saturday, April 10, 2-5pm
Limited capacity at gallery, RSVP

Artist Talk with Miatta Kawinzi and Ronny Quevedo
Thursday, April 29, 6-7pm ET
Virtual, RSVP for Zoom link


CUE Art Foundation
137 West 25th Street
Ground Floor
New York, NY 10001


Gallery Hours: Wednesday - Saturday, 12-6pm.
Visitor Health & Safety Protocols.

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Exhibition Website
Exhibition Catalogue
Catalogue Essay - "To Allow for Tenderness" by Adeola Olakiitan
Exhibition Video Walk-Through
Exhibition Artist & Curator-Mentor Talk with Miatta Kawinzi & Ronny Quevedo


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January 2021

I am incredibly honored to be announced as a recipient of the 2021-22 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship!

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Screenshot from E.S.P. TV promo video.

3 November, 2020

State of the Artist: We’re Only Dreaming - Streaming live November 3rd from the Admiral Twin Drive-In (Tulsa, OK) & at Stateoftheartist.net, 7 PM CST // 8 PM EST.

Co-presented by Atomic Culture and Tri-City Collective and in collaboration with E.S.P. TV and For Freedoms. Curated by Atomic Culture.

Inspired by Nam June Paik’s “Good Morning Mr. Orwell” and the Wide Awakes “Awakening 2020” movement, State of the Artist: We’re Only Dreaming is a variety show that looks beyond the election at the future we dream of and the continued efforts made to radically reimagine the structures we live within.

Participating Artists: Francheska Alcántara, Demian DinéYazhi', Zachary Fabri, Edgar Fabián Frías, Jorly Flores, Fronteristxs, Joy Harjo, Allison Herrera, Xandra Ibarra, Miatta Kawinzi, Suzanne Kite, Jammal Lemy, Kalup Linzy, Blackhorse Lowe, Laura Ortman, Legacy Russell, Cinthya Santos Briones, Steph Simon, Sondra Slade, Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán, Candace Wiley, +more...

Supported by Tulsa Artist Fellowship, For Freedoms, and Awakening 2020.

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September 2020

NYC: I am thrilled to be selected as a Smack Mellon 2020-21 Hot Pick!

Smack Mellon’s Hot Picks program was launched in 2007. The top artists, as selected from the Studio Program applicants by a panel of esteemed curators, arts professionals, and established artists, are featured on the Smack Mellon website and social media for one year.

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Miatta Kawinzi, Movement Study (Tulsa), 2020.

August 2020

Tulsa, OK: I am incredibly honored to be granted a 2020-21 Tulsa Artist Fellowship and receive the opportunity to live and work in Tulsa, connect with the local cultural and artistic landscape, learn more about the city’s past and present, and embark on new/expand on ongoing research and creative production.

From the Fellowship’s Land Acknowledgement:
We are standing on the tribal lands of the Osage, Cherokee and Muscogee (Creek) People. We honor their elders, past and present.

We are standing on the land of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. We pay respect to these victims and survivors, past and present.

Please take a moment to consider the many legacies of violence, displacement, migration and settlement upon this land. Tulsa Artist Fellowship offers our care and commitment to acknowledging these truths and resisting injustice in all forms through intentional programming and artistic practices.

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Miatta Kawinzi, SHE GATHER ME, Ongoing. Video Still.

July 2020

NYC: CUE Art Foundation is pleased to announce the 2021 exhibition season, featuring exhibitions curated by established artists as well as those selected through our annual Open Calls for solo exhibitions and curatorial projects. CUE’s exhibition program presents new and exceptionally strong work by under-recognized and emerging artists based in the United States.

CUE's 2020 Open Call winners were unanimously selected by a panel comprised of artist Guadalupe Maravilla, curator Sohrab Mohebbi, artist Ronny Quevedo, and curator Legacy Russell. The nominating artist was Tiona Nekkia McClodden. The Open Call panelists and nominating artists will serve as curators and mentors, supporting each exhibiting artist throughout the process of producing their exhibition.

I am so honored to be selected for this upcoming solo exhibition opportunity!

April 8 – May 12, 2021
Miatta Kawinzi
Curator-Mentor: Ronny Quevedo

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Miatta Kawinzi, All-Ready, 2020 (&beyond). Video Still. Color, Sound, 2:38 min.

July 2020

WEB: Miatta Kawinzi takes us through a ritual of endings and beginnings, mediated by experiments in sound, gesture, and ceremony. Breathe and escape into the potential of change.

View on DecameronTV, Red Bull Arts.

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Miatta Kawinzi, Beam, 2020. Digital Photograph & Text.

May 2020

WEB: I am honored to have a new piece included in Constance DeJong: Digital Constellations, presented by the Hunter College Art Galleries in concert with the postponed exhibition Constance DeJong (rescheduled for fall 2020).

I worked with Constance during my Hunter MFA, and as my thesis advisor, her wit, insight, knowingness, and input were incredibly valuable to me as a human, artist, and thinker.

Time-based and multi-platform, DeJong’s work has circulated widely and with admiration in literary and performance circles since the late 1970s, influencing both her contemporaries and students. Constance DeJong: Digital Constellations brings together the voices of many artists and writers who have worked closely with DeJong over the last two decades.

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Miatta Kawinzi, sweat/tears/sea, 2017. Video Still. Color, Sound, 6:17 min.

16 February, 2020

NYC: Vulnerability Reigns: Selected Work by Sable Elyse Smith, Joiri Minaya and Miatta Kawinzi. This shorts program, organized by Tiffany Joy Butler, includes a selection of experimental videos by artists Sable Elyse Smith, Joiri Minaya & Miatta Kawinzi. The word “black” has many definitions, yet it is indefinite all the same. To be open about our complex experiences takes vulnerability and these three artists poetically express their observations with keen honesty. The screening will be followed by a talkback with Miatta Kawinzi & Joiri Minaya.

Sunday, 16 February, 2020
2 - 3:30 PM
Museum of the Moving Image
Bartos Screening Room (wheelchair accessible)
36-01 35th Ave
Astoria, NY 11106

Tickets: $15 ($11 seniors and students / $9 youth (ages 3–17) / free or discounted for Museum members.

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Miatta Kawinzi, La Tercera Raíz, 2015. Video Still. Color, Sound, 9:22 min.

10 February, 2020

NYC: This edition of the Studio Museum in Harlem's Studio Screen, presented in partnership with Maysles Cinema, brings together three films to investigate migration, displacement, and hyphenated identities: American Hunger (2013, 19 min) by Ephraim Asili, La Tercera Raíz (The Third Root) (2015, 9 min) by Miatta Kawinzi, and an excerpt of Ars Jus Pax (Art, Justice, Peace) (2019, 30 min) by exhibiting artist Dozie Kanu.

A post-screening discussion will feature artists Ephraim Asili and Miatta Kawinzi in conversation with Studio Museum/MoMA Fellow Ravon Ruffin. Reception to follow.

This program is organized on the occasion of Dozie Kanu: Function, on view until March 15, 2020 at Studio Museum 127, 429 West 127th Street.

Maysles Cinema is wheelchair accessible.

Free with RSVP.

Monday, 10 February, 2020
7 - 9 PM
Maysles Cinema
343 Malcolm X Blvd
New York, NY 10027

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January 2020

I am incredibly thrilled to receive the inaugural Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts Alumni Award!

Alumni artists were nominated for the Bemis Alumni Award and the winner was selected by José Diaz, Chief Curator, The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA; Kim Nguyen, Curator and Head of Programs, Wattis Institute at the California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA; Karen Patterson, Curator, Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, PA; and Rachel Adams, Chief Curator and Director of Programs, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE.

I am honored to receive this support for my practice!

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January 2020

NYC: I am thrilled to receive support for my practice as an Artist-in-Residence in Experimental Sound at New York University’s Integrated Digital Media program where I am generating soundscapes for my ongoing project SHE GATHER ME!

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Exhibition view.

16 January - 19 March, 2020

Seattle, WA: Curated by Berette Macaulay, Exploring Passages Within the Black Diaspora will feature works by female-identifying photographers from Africa, the Americas, and the Caribbean. The exhibit looks at subjective histories and archival actions of storytelling, by interrogating transcultural decoloniality, identity, memory, meaning-making, and self-(re)invention. This PCNW exhibition is part of a series of public events partnering with MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora*, Frye Art Museum, and Jacob Lawrence Gallery.

Exhibiting artists: Abigail Hadeed, Courtney Morris, Intisar Abioto, LeLeita McKill, Mia K McNeal, Miatta Kawinzi, Nadia Alexis, Nadia Huggins, Ricky Weaver, Tiffany Smith, and Zoraida Lopez

*The seminal photography journal and global commitment of MFON Women Photographers of the African Diaspora was conceived, founded, and published by artist Adama Delphine Fawundu and photographer Laylah Amatullah Barrayn, inspired by the life and work of their friend and colleague, Nigerian-born American photographer Mmekutmfon ‘Mfon’ Essien.

Photographic Center Northwest
900 12th Ave
Seattle, WA 98122

Exhibition catalog available here!

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13 November, 2019

NYC: Queer|Art presents a special evening - The Hammer Mix: Decades - organized in honor of legendary artist and filmmaker Barbara Hammer (1939–2019), whose prolific creative career spanned more than six decades. The program includes a screening of short films made across those decades and explores some of Hammer’s many diverse creative interests. N. Scott Johnson will perform a special live accompaniment to Hammer’s 2018 film Evidentiary Bodies. A post-screening conversation with film historian Sarah Keller and artists A. K. Burns and Miatta Kawinzi, moderated by program curator Vanessa Haroutunian, will consider Hammer's influence on past, present, and future generations of artists.

Wednesday, 13 November, 2019
7:00pm
The Museum of Modern Art
Theater 1
11 West 53rd St
New York, NY 10019

Tickets.

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19 October, 2019 - 5 January, 2020

Detroit, MI: I am thrilled to present an iteration of my installation gatherin’ space in the group exhibition Beyond Space, curated by Carrie Mae Weems and Anita N. Bateman.

Beyond Space includes work from Carrie Mae Weems and the Carr Center Independent Scholars, as well as pieces from Jennifer Harge, Carole Harris, Miatta Kawinzi, and David Philpot — multi-disciplinary artists interested in forms of craft, ritual, and memory as sites for creative expression.

These artists confront the duration of legacy evident in the passing of time as well as stories of migration, spirituality, and domesticity, transcending fixed narratives of history by focusing on how, and whom, we commemorate.

Opening Reception:
Saturday, 19 October, 2019
7 - 9 PM
The Carr Center Contemporary Gallery at The Park Shelton
15 E. Kirby Street, 1st FL
Detroit, MI 48202

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Miatta Kawinzi, Star Spangz, 2013. Video Still.

26 October, 2019

NYC: The first of her kind, the lesbian experimental filmmaker Barbara Hammer paid homage to queer history, bodies, and subculture for over 50 years. An adored mentor, Hammer intentionally fostered a robust lineage of lesbian and queer filmmakers. This shorts program is an introduction to the next generation of radical lesbian and queer filmmakers.

COLOR ME BARBARA pairs Hammer’s works, memorable and underseen, with recent shorts by the latest and greatest experimental filmmakers who have been nourished by her films and friendship, including Scott Miller Berry, Joey Carducci, Liz Rosenfeld, Sasha Wortzel, and the winners of the Barbara Hammer Lesbian Experimental Filmmaking Grant, Fair Brane and Miatta Kawinzi. By becoming the first, Hammer ensured we would never go without.

I am honored to have my piece Star Spangz included in this program.

Saturday, 26 October, 2019
11:30am
Cinépolis Chelsea
Theater 8
260 West 23rd Street
New York, NY 10011

Tickets.

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20 September, 2019

DC: In this age of technological expediency and global unrest, artists must not only create but also inquire and reflect upon key tenets—both present and past—of our culture. POV Spark’s African Interactive Art Residency is exploring the role of archives and the need to embrace diasporic programming in volatile times.

National Museum of African American History and Culture Curator Dr. Rhea Combs will join artists-in-residence Sophia Nahli Allison and Miatta Kawinzi in conversation, grounding the discussion in research and findings from the nine-week residency program.

The panel is a culminating conversation celebrating the end of the African Interactive Art Residency, hosted by POV Spark, CAAMA and Eaton Workshop DC. This event was made possible with support from Open Society Foundations.

Friday, 20 September, 2019
7-9 PM

Eaton Workshop
Crystal Room
Washington, DC 20005

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"The Shield, Emblems, and Motto of Liberia as established in 1847." NYPL Digital Collection.

July - September, 2019

NYC, DC, Venice: I am thrilled to be an Artist-in-Residence with POV Spark in partnership with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in the African Interactive Art Residency. This residency supports artists from Africa and its diaspora engaged in political and social issues in experimenting with digital and emerging media to explore new forms of expression. Through the access to archives enabled by the NMAAHC partnership, I am exploring and thinking through historical and contemporary entanglements between the US and Liberia.

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Miatta Kawinzi, Art M.B.F., 2013. Video Still.

14 September, 2019

NYC: I am so honored to be screening two video works alongside the visionary work of Barbara Hammer and Joey Carducci in The Futurism is Ours: Undoing The Whole Thing.

Undoing The Whole Thing is about breaking down and building back up again. Featuring short work by Barbara Hammer, Miatta Kawinzi, and Joey Carducci, the program reflects on the filmmakers’ experiences working within and against cinematic lineages through their exploration of selfhood, queerness, and alternative social realities.

Through combined digital and analog technologies and various modes of cinematic expression, each of these filmmakers renders cinema a space through which to examine and reconstruct the self, the body, and the present moment. Together, they tell a story of queer bodies and image-making, of undoing the whole thing before building it anew.

Kawinzi and Carducci will be present for a post-screening discussion.

Saturday, 14 September, 2019
7:30p
Maysles Cinema
343 Malcolm X Boulevard
New York, NY 10027

Tickets.

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9 August - 24 November, 2019

"....to exercise control over a sensible infinity, to master it and to make a clearing out of complexity."
- Curatorial statement based on the writings of Alain Badiou, Cinema as Philosophical Experimentation.

Buffalo, NY: I am thrilled to be exhibiting a surround sound iteration of my soundscape Breathwork as part of the audio programing of Double Real at the Front Yard Gallery at Burchfield Penney Art Center, curated by Rebekkah Palov. This exhibition features recent work in video and sound from past artists-in-residence at the Institute for Electronic Arts (IEA) at Alfred University in Alfred, NY.

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Installation View at the Queens Museum.

21 July, 2019

NYC: Beta-Local is an artist-run organization based in San Juan, Puerto Rico, dedicated to fostering knowledge, exchange, and transdisciplinary collaboration. Puerto Rico is an archipelago that has been defined by the US Supreme Court as an unincorporated territory “inhabited by alien races.” As part of Mundos Alternos: Art and Science Fiction in the Americas, Beta-Local will transport its operations to Queens for a full day of programming led by aliens, alongside New York-based collaborators.

I am excited to be a contributor to Satellite calling control, no answer through which collaborators of Beta-Local were invited to mail unidentified flying objects into outer space/outer lands with no clear hope of a response or return, similar to NASA’s 1977 Golden Record, which famed astronomer Carl Sagan suggested was akin to launching a message in a bottle into the “cosmic ocean.” Packages arrived at the Queens Museum from April to July to be opened in the museum on July 21st and displayed as traces of the organization’s work and ideas.

Sunday, 21 July, 2019
Alternatives & Futures
1 - 6 PM
The Queens Museum
New York City Building
Flushing Meadows Corona Park
Queens, NY 11368

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Summer 2019

I am honored to have a critical reflection by Tara Marsden on my piece Star Spangz included in New Body.

New Body is a collection of critical and creative responses to the group exhibition, Social Objects, curated by Emilia Shaffer-Del Valle at CTRL+SHFT Collective in Oakland, CA, in summer 2018. The exhibition examined communication as both practice and medium—addressing, for instance, familial connection, alternative immigration dialogues, and the relationships between queerness and labor—and focused particularly on artists identifying as FQTPOC. Composed of individual responses to each of the artists in the exhibition, New Body is an expansion of these conversations and an extension of that communicative sociality beyond the confines of the gallery.

Edited by Tara Marsden and Emilia Shaffer-Del Valle, the publication includes new writing from Tatiana Luboviski-Acosta, Tara Marsden, Ruth Gebreyesus, sair goetz, el, Sarah O’Neal, and Tania Butterworth in response to the work of Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo, Miatta Kawinzi, Liziana Cruz, Zach Ozma, Grace Rosario Perkins, Camille Lee, and Stephanie Lindquist.

Available in-store (Oakland, CA)/online at Wolfman Books.

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Collaborative image, Miatta Kawinzi & ray ferreira, 2019.

12 July, 2019

NYC: I will be debuting a new performance - Edges on Fleek: The Borders of Speech - with ray ferreira as part of MoMA PopRally × Queens: Crossroads at Trans-Pecos. This performance will speculate on language as a malleable tool to assert identity, shape space, and (re)frame existing structures.

The event will also feature live music by the Indo-Latin funk jam band Salsa Masala, and a pop-up with treats from Queens Night Market.

Doors open at 7:00pm; performance is at 7:30pm. Tickets are $10 and include the performance, live music, a DJ set, a cash bar, and food available for purchase by Queens Night Market.

Trans-Pecos
915 Wyckoff Ave
Ridgewood, NY 11385

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4 May, 2019

NYC: Without A Name: On Living and Working Between Spaces
11:30am - 1:00pm

What are our notions of studio, home and identity in the global art world today? Artists RICHARD MUDARIKI, MIATTA KAWINZI, and LIZANIA CRUZ, will engage in a conversation drawing on their experiences of working across cultural and geographic boundaries. Panel moderated by SIDDHARTHA MITTER (Writer).

Register here.

1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair
FORUM, curated by Black Chalk and Co. (Nontsikelelo Mutiti & Tinashe Mushakavanhu)
Industria
775 Washington Street
New York, NY 10014

*The audio recording of this conversation is available here.

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12 April - 2 June, 2019

Detroit, MI: Please join us on Friday, April 12th from 6-9pm for the opening of a group exhibition of works completed during the three-month artist residencies of Miatta Kawinzi, Patrick Quarm, and Tiff Massey.

Red Bull Arts Detroit
1551 Winder St
Detroit, MI 48207

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Installation view of “Harlem: In Situ,” Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Academy, Andover, MA. Shown: from left, works by Jordan Casteel, Sherrill Roland (video, jumpsuit, four images), and Miatta Kawinzi (3 images). Image via Culture Type.

30 March - 31 July, 2019

Andover, MA: Harlem: In Situ explores the depth and complexity of this renowned neighborhood, highlighting the work of some of the most important visual artists working from the late 1920s through today. Initially inspired by the Addison’s trove of Harlem street-photography, this show also includes prints from the collection by Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, James Lesesne Wells, and Vincent D. Smith, as well as several key works by nearly a dozen artists, working across time and media, including Charles Alston, Jordan Casteel, Aaron Douglas, Miatta Kawinzi, Alice Neel, Lorraine O’Grady, and Kehinde Wiley. These artists and their works investigate the legacy and trajectory of Harlem, which encompasses mass migration, opulence, cultural renaissance, depression, demise, empowerment, pride, and gentrification.

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March 2019

I am pleased to be a Visual Arts contributor to the inaugural Dancing While Black Digital Journal, with thanks to Visual Curator Nontsikelelo Mutiti. This Journal was produced by Angela’s Pulse and developed and designed in partnership with the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics and PURPOSE Productions, with funding from The Surdna Foundation.

You can view this issue here.

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21 February, 2019

Detroit, MI: Please join Red Bull Arts Detroit on Thursday, February 21st at 7pm for our inaugural “Viewfinder” discussion. This panel discussion will engage our three current Resident Artists Miatta Kawinzi, Tiff Massey, and Patrick Quarm, in a discussion about place, how it relates to identity, and the varied ways in which that manifests in each of their practices. Moderated by Michael Stone-Richards, the discussion will be an entry point into the work of all three artists and lay the stage for their exhibition, opening on Friday, April 12th.

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13 January - 12 April, 2019

Detroit, MI: I am so thrilled to receive the opportunity to spend this period living & working in Detroit through the Red Bull Arts Detroit residency! [Artforum]

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From left to right: Kimberlee Venable, Ayanna U’Dongo, Anna Burholt, Tandis Shoushtray, Miatta Kawinzi, Vanessa Haroutunian, Cecilia Dougherty, Erica Cho, Carmel Curtis, Lynne Sachs, and Peggy Ahwesh. Image by Tiph Browne.

December 2018
NYC: I am so immensely grateful to receive the 2018 Barbara Hammer Lesbian Experimental Filmmaking Grant, administered by Queer|Art!

Release: Last night, a full house packed the main theater at the IFC Center in Greenwich Village to celebrate New York-based filmmaker and multi-disciplinary artist Miatta Kawinzi, who was announced by New York City-based non-profit Queer|Art as the winner of the second annual Barbara Hammer Lesbian Experimental Filmmaking Grant. Kawinzi will receive a $5,000 cash grant to support the making of a new film installation: “SHE GATHER ME”.

The grant award was announced during a special edition of the acclaimed screening series Queer|Art|Film, organized by Hammer Grant Manager, Vanessa Haroutunian, to recognize some of the many women experimental filmmakers who have been influenced and inspired by Hammer’s prolific career. The evening began with a special tribute to Hammer by Haroutunian and Hammer's longtime partner, Florrie Burke. They then invited the judges for this year’s grant—Carmel Curtis, Cecilia Dougherty, and Ayanna U’Dongo—to announce the winner.

Kawinzi was one of 94 applicants who applied for the Hammer grant in its second year. “SHE GATHER ME” will combine analog and digital film and video, abstracted soundscapes, and sculptural elements in an installation to reflect on the idea of frequency from different vantage points: as material, as energy, and as containing a transformative potential in the face on ongoing societal discord.

Kawinzi has recently been creating sculptural sound and video installations that explore and question themes of selfhood, diaspora, and belonging. With a poetic import, her work incorporates performative elements and proposes techniques of experimentation as a means to imagine the body, social structures, and social relations differently. In her work, she thinks through the politics of temporality and alternative ways of navigating time.

Five other women were acknowledged as finalists for this year—Kim Anno, Erica Cho, Kimberlee Veneble, and collaborators Anna Burholt & Tandis Shoushtray. After the awarding of the grant, Haroutunian presented a selection of short experimental films made by women who have been inspired by Hammer and career. The screening, entitled “The Hammer Mix: Generations,” included works by some of the avant-garde’s most dynamic filmmakers—Peggy Ahwesh, A.K. Burns, Cheryl Dunye, Dani Leventhal ReStack, Lynne Sachs, and Cauleen Smith—and their work was paired with Hammer’s selected film entitled Still Point. Haroutunian and special guests Peggy Ahwesh and Lynne Sachs took the stage after the screening to engage in a conversation about the films and the artists’ influence from Hammer. Hammer wrote about the program, “I am honored to have inspired these genius filmmakers. It truly amazes me for when you are young and working hard you just think about getting the work out. Then to find years later that your films meant a whole lot to certain artists, these and others, just takes your breath away. I am delighted to have their selected works gathered together for tonight's program.”

[Announcement.]

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10 - 13 December, 2018

Amherst, MA:
Join us for a multi-disciplinary art exhibition - It’s not about space, it’s about s p a c e - showcasing the work of students from the Fall 2018 Five College Advanced Studio Seminar - Committed to the Idea: Conceptual Cohesion Across Mediums, taught by Professor Miatta Kawinzi at Hampshire College.

This work considers the concept of space as physical, social, emotional, and temporal, posing questions that suggest divergent narratives and open up s p a c e for new interpretation and exploration.

Reception: Wednesday, December 12th, 2018, 6 - 8 pm.
Exhibition dates: Monday, December 10th - Thursday, December 13th, 2018.
Location: Hampshire College Art Gallery
Harold F. Johnson Library Building, Ground Floor
893 West Street, Amherst, MA 01002

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5 December, 2018

Amherst, MA: Time Slips / Shifts : Forging the Radical

What can queer & trans poetics teach us about forging radical ways of being?
Guest artist Charles Theonia 06F returns to Hampshire College in celebration of the release of their artist book Saw Palmettos (Container, 2018), a series of short poems about hormones, community, and the brain-time continuum. Theonia is joined by Adjunct Assistant Professor of Art Miatta Kawinzi 07S and Ethics & the Common Good Project Coordinator Teal Van Dyck 06F, each sharing recent work in poetry. Connect with three poets in conversation for an evening of integration and refraction, slips and shifts, embodiment and displacement, and radical poetic remembering -- in this time & beyond.

The readings will be followed with an open dialogue centering the voices of queer & trans students in sharing thoughts, questions and experiences to collectively parse through the navigation of these identities in the then, now, and future.

This event is made possible with the support of the Library Gallery, Knowledge Commons, School for Interdisciplinary Arts, Creative Writing Program, Queer Studies, New Student Experience, Alumni Office SPARC Fund, Culture Brain & Development, and the Ethics & the Common Good Project.

Wednesday, December 5th, 2018
6pm
Hampshire College
893 West St
Harold F. Johnson Library, 2nd FL
Amherst, MA 01002

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30 November, 2018

Western MA: You are cordially invited to Phantom Erratic #16, featuring stimulating electronic sounds and performances by:

Cube
Jen Kutler
Miatta Kawinzi
HFSB
Yvette Janine Jackson

Organized by Neil Young.

Friday, 30 November
8pm; $10
The Root Cellar
10 Fiske Ave
Greenfield, MA 01301

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For Freedoms Lawn Sign.

12 October, 2018

Amherst, MA: Organized by The University Museum of Contemporary Art, For Freedoms' Co-Founder Eric Gottesman will moderate a panel of artists and educators in a For Freedoms Town Hall to explore and discuss the role of democracy, art and civic action today.

Panelists will include: Stephanie Shonekan, Chair of Afro-American Studies, UMass; Joseph Krupczynski, Director of Civic Engagement and Service Learning, UMass; and Miatta Kawinzi, multidisciplinary artist and Adjunct Professor at Hampshire College.

Free & open to the public; food will be served.

For Freedoms uses art to encourage and deepen public exploration of freedom in the 21st century.

For Freedoms TOWN HALL: Art, Activism, and Social (In)Justice?
Atrium at John W. Olver Design Building, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Friday, 12 October, 2018
5:30pm

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Fall 2018

Amherst, MA: I am incredibly honored to be back at my alma mater, Hampshire College, as an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Art this fall.

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Flyer by Georgia McCandlish.

30 August, 2018

NYC: I am honored to be a featured artist in Femmescapes Vol. 4, a magazine that presents work by queer and trans artists and writers who experience an affinity with femmeness, edited by ray ferreira, Abigail Lloyd & Charles Theonia.

Please join us to celebrate its launch with readings and performances by contributors:
Ashna Ali
Cyrée Jarelle Johnson
Miatta Kawinzi
Zefyr Lisowski

Thursday, 30 August, 2018 | 6 - 8pm
Starr Bar
214 Starr Street
Brooklyn, NY 11237

Access Info: Starr Bar is wheelchair-accessible with gender-neutral bathrooms. ASL interpretation will be provided. We ask that attendees please refrain from wearing scented products. If you have access questions/requests, email femmescapesthezine@gmail.com.

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25 July, 2018

NYC: In conjunction with the Alchemy exhibition, join us for a performance by Miatta Kawinzi that will use language, movement, and live/recorded sound to explore different kinds of power. Kawinzi will use sound as a force within space to alchemize hardness into softness, giving particular resonance to this transformation in this moment of ongoing societal discord.

Wednesday, 25 July, 2018 | 7pm
Gallery at BRIC House
647 Fulton Street (Enter on Rockwell Place)
Brooklyn, NY 11217

Free / RSVP

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9 - 20 July, 2018

NY: I am honored to be an Artist-in-Residence at Alfred University's Institute for Electronic Arts where I will be deepening my knowledge in the production and techniques of sound art through experimentation and the development of new work.

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Miatta Kawinzi, Star Spangz, 2013. Video Still.

6 July - 26 August, 2018

Oakland, CA: CTRL+SHFT Collective is pleased to announce Social Objects, an exhibition curated by Emilia Shaffer-Del Valle and featuring the work of Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo, Lizania Cruz, Miatta Kawinzi, Camille Lee, Stephanie Lindquist, Zach Ozma, and Grace Rosario Perkins.

Social Objects is about how and why we communicate – with one another and with ourselves, in intimate spaces, and as a member of broader societies. Every day we share, respond, and question, and every day we make choices – meditated or subconscious – about how to convey these thoughts. In eras of revolution and resistance, as ours is now, our choices regarding what and how to communicate carry particular weight.

The exhibition focuses particularly on artists identifying as FQTPOC (Female, Queer, Trans, and/or People of Color) who use and meld the four primary forms of communication – text, movement/the body, visual imagery, and sound.

Opening: Friday, July 6, 6-9pm
Gallery Hours: Saturdays and Sundays 12-6pm, and by appointment

CTRL+SHFT
1430 34th Street
Oakland, CA 94608

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Miatta Kawinzi, Pouvoir, 2018. Video Still.

OPENING RECEPTION: JUNE 27, 2018 | 7-9PM
ON VIEW: JUNE 28 - AUGUST 12, 2018
CURATED BY: ELIZABETH FERRER & JENNY GEROW

NYC: Alchemy presents the work of seven artists whose work reflects new ways of thinking about the ancient concept of alchemy – the transformation of matter. Employing diverse media, these artists transform non-conventional materials to create visually layered statements about the body and gender, race, and the environment. Their work – including large-scale installations and work commissioned by BRIC – also manifests the potential for the spiritual to be drawn out from the quotidian world around us. As is BRIC’s tradition for summer exhibitions, Alchemy will be accompanied by a series of lively Wednesday evening and Friday afternoon public programs including those dedicated to conversation, performance, dance, and the healing arts.

Exhibiting artists include Nicole Awai, Serra Victoria Bothwell Fels, Borinquen Gallo, Phoebe Grip, Miatta Kawinzi, Anna Riley, and Kennedy Yanko.

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23 May, 2018

France: As a participant in Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Paris Residency program at the Cité internationale des arts, sponsored by Mairie de Paris/Mayor’s Office of the City of Paris, I have been researching African diasporic histories and presences in Paris and reflecting on my findings and experience in new work using ink, string, sound, video, and performative gestures. This work explores themes of alienation and belonging, the layered nature of identity, and the shifts between internal and external perceptions of the self and the “other” (and the other selves) as conflated by time, space, and movement. I will be sharing this work in breath/string/body.

breath/string/body
Wednesday, 23 May, 2018
18h
Cité internationale des arts, Atelier #8412
18, rue de l'Hôtel de Ville
75004 Paris, France

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January - June, 2018

France: I am incredibly honored to be a participant in Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Paris Residency program at the Cité internationale des arts, sponsored by Mairie de Paris/Mayor’s Office of the City of Paris.

I will be thinking through issues of migration and diaspora - especially in the Afro-Parisian context - through research and studio practice.

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7 December, 2017

NYC: I will be bringing my Pushing Through workshop to Columbia University. This performative, movement-based workshop uses Theatre of the Oppressed exercises, personal writing, and improvisational techniques to explore the ways in which oppression and resistance are experienced and expressed in, with, and through the body.

RSVP - miatta@mkawstudio.com

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4 December, 2017

Amherst, MA: I will be giving a talk on my recent work in the Studio Art Building at Hampshire College.

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29 November, 2017 - 7 January, 2018

NYC: I am happy to be showing new work in the group exhibition 12 x 12 at Black Ball Projects in Brooklyn. Opening Wednesday, 29 November from 6 - 9 pm, the show will run until 7 January, 2018.

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16 November, 2017

Richmond, VA: I will be giving a public lecture on my work as part of my Adjunct Lecturer appointment at the University of Richmond.

Thursday, 16 November
6:30 - 7:30pm
Adams Auditorium
Boatwright Library

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5 November, 2017

NYC:
J. Soto Presents...
Miatta Kawinzi, IV Castellanos & Amanda Hunt, ray ferreira, Keijaun Thomas

The artists are performers, dancers, video makers, object makers. They are connected through their individual approaches to their material and expressiveness of embodied existences, and through the sinuous tendons of queer, black, and POC communities. Using their work as they use tools to build, frame, practice, and to repeat; to create approaches that are textual, aware, speak-out-wards and in preservation.

Edging upon the deep areas in-between documentation, performance, and gesture the work is alive. These are approaches, unlanded, yet, this is what I hope we are working towards in community, in fortification. In fortification of our own communities.

Don't Fall Back
Sunday, November 5th, 2017
7:00pm
Knockdown Center
51-19 Flushing Ave
Queens, NY

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Miatta Kawinzi, Assembly (detail), 2017. Vinyl Installation on Window, 80.25 x 69 in.

15 September, 2017

Amherst, MA:
Artists' Performance & Panel Discussion
Miatta Kawinzi, lê thi diem thúy, Sahar Muradi + Laimah Osman
Hampshire College Art Gallery
5 - 6:30pm

The poet-artists in Of Soil and Tongues discuss and perform elements of their work and the experience of expanding their practice into the Gallery, as part of the 5th Annual Amherst Poetry Festival.

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8 - 10 September, 2017

South Africa: I am thrilled to be exhibiting in the FNB Joburg Art Fair at the Bag Factory booth (A04) in association with the David Koloane Writers Mentorship Programme. The fair will take place from 8 - 10 September, 2017 at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg.

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Miatta Kawinzi, Untitled, 2017. Digital Photograph.

3 - 11 August, 2017

South Africa: I am excited to present a solo exhibition of new works created during my Visiting Artist Residency at the Bag Factory.

Through video, poetics, sculptural installation, and works on paper, I have been exploring ideas surrounding that which rests beneath the surface and the physical, conceptual, and societal resonances of this notion. I am considering the ways in which the "below" can be a rich site of possibility; a place from which to open up space.

Opening reception:
Wednesday, August 2nd, 6pm
The Bag Factory
10 Mahlathini St
Johannesburg, South Africa

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29 July, 2017

South Africa: As part of my Visiting Artist Residency, I will be leading a performative movement-based workshop on Saturday, July 29th from 11am-4pm at the Bag Factory in Johannesburg. This workshop will use Theatre of the Oppressed exercises, personal writing, and improvisational techniques to explore the ways in which oppression and resistance are experienced and expressed in, with, and through the body.

RSVP - miatta@mkawstudio.com / linda@bagfactoryart.org.za.

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Installation View. Photo by Adam Reich.

20 July, 2017 - 7 January, 2018

NYC: I am thrilled to be included in Their Own Harlems, organized by Connie H. Choi at the Studio Museum in Harlem. In honor of the centennial of the birth of Jacob Lawrence (1917–2000), Their Own Harlems examines the ways in which the urban landscape has influenced Lawrence’s artistic practice, as well as that of other artists. The works in this exhibition thus consider different aspects of urban life, such as the ritual of moving through the city and the direct observation of scenes on the street, to illustrate how the city has served as a source of inspiration for artists across generations.

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22 July - 23 September, 2017

Newark, NJ: I am excited to be included in COMM | ALT | SHIFT, curated by Larry Ossei-Mensah and Dexter Wimberly. The show includes the work of 14 contemporary artists who use video to explore the complexities and angst of modern times. The exhibition's title references keyboard shortcuts or a sequence or combination of keystrokes on a computer that lead to various, yet specified outcomes. COMM | ALT | SHIFT unpacks video as a ubiquitous technology for entertainment, education and escape, as well as a powerful tool for surveillance, manipulation and control.

Participating artists: Carlos Aires, Bolo (Saks Afridi and Qinza Najm), Delphine Fawundu, Genevieve Gaignard, Jibade-Khalil Huffman, George Jenne, Miatta Kawinzi, Lin Ke, Jen Liu, Jillian Mayer, Nontsikelelo Mutiti and Dyani Douze, Federico Solmi, Jan Staller, and Rodrigo Valenzuela.

Opening Reception:
Saturday, July 22nd, 2 - 5pm
Aljira, a Center for Contemporary Art
591 Broad Street
Newark, NJ

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22 June, 2017

NYC: My video La Tercera Raíz is included in make_ place, a cultural production organized by the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC) and co-curators Eva Mayhabal Davis and Emilia Shaffer-Del Valle. Artists: Yasi Alipour, Laura Anderson Barbata, Lionel Cruet, Isabella Cruz-Chong, Emmanuel Galvez, Giannina Gutierrez, Miatta Kawinzi, Camille Lee, Cela Luz, Gera Lozano, Umesh Mangipudi, PJ Gubatina Policarpio, Tajh Rust, Stephanie Segura, Heriberto Sanchez, Alex Seel, TiJay, & Selina Zawacki. Opening reception Thursday, June 22nd, 7 - 9 pm at the New York Immigration Coalition.

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1 June - 15 August, 2017

South Africa: I am honored to be an artist-in-residence at the Bag Factory in Johannesburg where I will be developing new work and engaging with the city.

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16 June, 2017

Brooklyn, NY: I am excited to be included in Connections, curated by Betsy Lewin - an evening of artist videos featuring the work of Sebastian Carrasco, Sarah Crofts, ray ferreria, Christian Hendricks, Nari Kim, Miatta Kawinzi, Kevin Alan Swenson & Erik Patton at Video Revival, an independent cinema house in Crown Heights.

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I am thrilled to share this interview on my practice conducted by Stacia Yeapanis for the OtherPeoplesPixels Featured Artist series. I appreciate the opportunity to elaborate on the thinking behind my work.

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I am so happy to be a vocalist on Track 11: Hunter’s Moon II on the Waning Gibbous album Last Quarter, recorded during my time in Omaha last fall. Waning Gibbous is an open collective of musicians based in the mid-western United States that creates and records spontaneously on the evenings of full moons.

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Miatta Kawinzi, sweat/tears/sea, 2017. Video Still.

1 June - 1 October, 2017

Amherst, MA: I will be exhibiting a new sound/text/video installation in Of Soil and Tongues at the Hampshire College Art Gallery, exhibiting alongside lê thi diem thúy & Sahar Muradi + Laimah Osman; curated by Amy Halliday and Jocelyn Edens. In this group show, three artist-poets chart paths through language and place in multimedia installations.

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Miatta Kawinzi, Art M.B.F., 2013. Video Still.

21 May, 2017

Brooklyn, NY: I will be screening my video Art M.B.F. at A.I.R. Gallery in OLD NEWS / NEW RULES, a screening & performance program on Sunday, May 21st at 7:30 pm. Organized by Fellow Eleanor King, the event features artists Tiffany Joy Butler, Miatta Kawinzi, Shadi Harouni, Divya Mehra, Joiri Minaya and Elise Rasmussen.

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13 May, 2017

NYC: vers (Michael Blake/ray ferreira/Miatta Kawinzi/Erik Patton) performance at Segue Reading series. Curated by Emmy Catedral.

How to serve blackberries & cream: Alexa, keep on running. Rich. When heated, masc-arpone melts. It keeps. They demolished. We re-built. Plated. Have four. I’m not sure how to help you with that. Split & scrape.

Saturday, May 13th
4:30 - 6:30pm
Zinc Bar
82 W 3rd St, NYC 10012

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19 - 29 March, 2017

NYC: I am excited to be included in this year's Whitney Houston Biennial, curated by C. Finley. Opening Sunday, March 19th, 4 - 8pm at 325 West Broadway, NYC 10013.

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26 February, 2017

NYC: I am happy to be invited by Eleanor King to show work in Known Unknowns. Opening Sunday, February 26th, 8 - 11pm at 86 Orchard St, 2nd FL, NYC 10002.

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Miatta Kawinzi, Hands Up #1, 2016. Digital Photograph.

15 December, 2016

NYC: I am honored to be a featured artist in Issue 08 of Apogee Journal.
The issue launch party will be held on Thursday, 15 December from 7 - 9pm at the Asian American Writers' Workshop.

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20 November, 2016

NYC: I will be presenting my video La Tercera Raíz (Spanish version) and co-facilitating discussion at this screening and dialogue on race/colorism within the Afro/Latinx community alongside Tiffany Joy Butler, ray ferreira, Linda Paúla Marcos & Joiri Minaya at Immigrant Movement International in Corona, Queens.

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Miatta Kawinzi, gatherin' space, 2016. Outdoor Installation View. Color Video Projection & Sound on Loop, Aluminum Foil. Dimensions Variable.

11 November, 2016

Richmond, VA: I am excited to have been invited to present a new iteration of my installation gatherin' space at InLight Richmond, curated by Emily Smith. Organized by 1708 Gallery, InLight Richmond is an annual free public exhibition of light-based art and performances, this year held in Scott's Addition.

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Miatta Kawinzi, Untitled, 2016. Digital Photograph.

15 October, 2016

Omaha, NE: I will be showing new performance + video work at the Bemis Center's Open House/Open Studios.

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22 September, 2016

Omaha, NE: I will be giving a lecture on my practice at the University of Nebraska - Omaha's UNO Gallery on Thursday, September 22nd at 7pm. The gallery is located in the Weber Fine Arts building at 6505 University Dr S, Omaha, NE 68182.

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7 September - 18 November, 2016

Omaha, NE: I am incredibly honored to be selected as an Artist-in-Residence for the Sci-Fi & the Human Condition residency at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, a thematic residency focusing on science fiction and the inherent intersectionality of race, class, and gender.

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28 August, 2016: 2 - 4 PM

NYC: Please join me for my workshop Articulating Gesture, organized through the Studio Squared Public Programs at the Studio Museum in Harlem.

Navigating the intersection of urban vernacular and bodily gesture, this workshop invites exhibiting Harlem Postcards artist Miatta Kawinzi to expand upon her work Streetspeak (2016). The program will commence with a walking tour of 125th Street led by the artist, in which participants will engage in active listening amongst the plethora of conversations and acoustics of Harlem's sidewalks and public spaces. In the Museum's Theatre, guests will then activate an assemblage of overheard popular phrases and sentiments through collective movement exercises. Utilizing this same language, participants will encapsulate their experience by collaging text-and-image combinations onto a unique postcard of their own.

Free & open to the public; you can pre-register here.

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2 - 20 August, 2016

Puerto Rico: I am excited to participate in the Seminario Itinerante through San Juan's Beta-Local, organized by Beatriz Santiago Muñoz, Anahita Hekmat and Michelle Nonó. The Itinerant Seminar is a seminar-on-foot for artists who are interested in aesthetics, art, images and language in relation to land, geography, built structures, industrial and military devastation, freedom of movement and migration. This year's route is along the western coast of Puerto Rico, from Aguadilla to Cabo Rojo.

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Miatta Kawinzi, Streetspeak, 2016. Archival Inkjet Print, 16 x 20 in.

14 July - 30 October, 2016

NYC: I am honored to be commissioned to create a new work - Streetspeak - reflecting on Harlem and to be exhibiting at the Studio Museum in Harlem in the Harlem Postcards show, organized by Assistant Curator Hallie Ringle as part of the Summer Exhibition Season, alongside Alannis Alba, John Jennings, and Nontsikelelo Mutiti.

Harlem Postcards is an ongoing project that invites contemporary artists of diverse backgrounds to reflect on Harlem as a site of cultural activity, political vitality, visual stimuli, artistic contemplation and creative production. Representing intimate and dynamic perspectives of Harlem, the images reflect the idiosyncratic visions of contemporary artists from a wide range of backgrounds and locations. Each photograph has been reproduced as a limited edition postcard available free to visitors.

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10 July, 2016

NYC: I am pleased to be a panelist/facilitator on Navigating Power & Privilege at the Queens Museum, alongside ray ferreira, Ro Garrido, D’hana Perry, and Kameelah Janan Rasheed through the Open A.I.R. Artist Services Program.

The conversation will center on raising critical questions about navigating institutions, examining power and privilege as artists, and sharing collective strategies and tools to support one another.

RSVP.

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5 June - 30 July, 2016

NYC: I am pleased to be included in the group show --- revel ---, curated by Lauren Gidwitz at Kunstraum. Artists: Lindsay M Burke, Jacintha Clark, Matthew Craven, Evan Fugazzi, Miatta Kawinzi, Sangram Majumdar, Esperanza Mayobre, Paul Metrinko, Ellen Uzane Schneiderman & Ashley Nicole Wick.

Each artwork draws one into an intrinsic and magical world, each with its own layered and subtle storytelling.
They are autonomous but speak to one another freely.
The personal histories evoked in each artwork’s world focus on their own intimate experiences, but relate to larger ancient histories and contemporary cultural accounts in the making.

The opening reception will be on Sunday, June 5th from 4 - 6pm, and the closing reception will be on Saturday, July 30th from 7 - 9pm at Kunstraum, 20 Grand Ave #509, Brooklyn, NY 11205.

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30 April - 1 May, 2016

Oakland, CA: I will be presenting at the Open Engagement - POWER conference as part of The Hidden Curriculum, collectively running an ongoing translation booth and also facilitating movement-based workshops that draw on Theatre of the Oppressed techniques. These events will be held at the Oakland Museum of California.

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21 April - 7 May, 2016

Hunter College MFA Thesis Exhibition, Spring 2016
Opening reception Thursday, April 21st, 6 - 8pm.

205 Hudson St
(entrance on Canal)
Ground Floor Gallery
New York, NY 10013

Hours: Tuesday - Sunday, 1-6PM.

I will be showing my thesis work alongside fellow artists Michael Blake, Ryan Brennan, ray ferreira, Priscilla Fusco, Adam Golfer, Takayuki Kubota & Erik Patton.

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13 - 14 November, 2015

NYC: I will be showing new work at Hunter College MFA Open Studios from 6 - 10pm on Friday & 2 - 6pm on Saturday. The studios are located at 205 Hudson St in Tribeca and I'm in #374. This will be an opportunity to see what I've been working on in preparation for my thesis show coming up in the spring.

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25 September - 8 November, 2015

NYC: My video Star Spangz is included in the group exhibition Power, Protest & Resistance, curated by Oshun Layne & Danny Simmons with the Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation. The opening will be Friday, September 25th from 6-8pm at:
Skylight Gallery
Bed-Stuy Restoration Corp
1368 Fulton St, 3rd fl
Brooklyn, NY 11216

I am honored to show my work alongside this group of thought-provoking artists.

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26 August, 2015

Mexico City, Mexico: I will be showing new work made this summer in Mexico at SOMA Summer's closing event.

Participants: AK/OK, Shobun Baile, Niels Bekkema, Lyndsay Bloom, Francesco Cagnin, Barb Choit, Olmo Cuña, Erin Diebboll, Gail Dodge, Caroline Doherty, Sara Eliassen, Sara García, Shadi Harouni, Audrey Hope, Einat Imber, Maria Iorio & Raphael Cuomo, Miatta Kawinzi, Eleanor King, Kiyoto Koseki, Laura McMillian, Omar Mismar, Alberto Morreo, Francesco Nazardo, Cristine Posner, Barbara Rauch, Raquel Solórzano Cataño, Elisa Strinna, Shawn Taylor, Ana Wolovick, Vere van Gool, Linda Voorwinde & Claire van Lubeek.

Coordinated by Srdjan Tunic.

Wednesday, August 26th, 6PM at SOMA, Calle 13 #25, Col. San Pedro de los Pinos, 03800 Ciudad de México.

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21 August, 2015

Mexico City, Mexico: I will be performing at the Centro Cultural Universitario Tlatelolco in Sobre la presentación/On presentation, a performative function produced by SOMA Summer 2015.

Participants:

Armando Rosales
Caroline Doherty
Daniel Aguilar Ruvalcaba
Gail Dodge
Kiyoto Koseki
Linda Voordwinde & Claire van Lubeek
Miatta Kawinzi
Olmo Cuña in collaboration with Sofia Garfias
Shobun Baile
Stephen Kwok

Friday, August 21, 2015
6:00 pm
Free entrance
Limited capacity

Centro Cultural Universitario Tlatelolco, Sala 1
Avenida Ricardo Flores Magón 1
Colonia Nonoalco Tlatelolco, 06995 Ciudad de México, D.F.

Sobre la presentación/On presentation is composed of a series of temporal interventions in a conference room at the Centro Cultural Universitario Tlatelolco. Designed to coincide with the exhibition T de Tlatelolco: Arte, Arquitectura e Historia, this event brings together works that contend with the bureaucratic history and aesthetics of the site formerly occupied by the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Relations.

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6 July - 28 August, 2015

Mexico City, Mexico: I am honored to be selected to participate in this year's SOMA Summer program, a unique and dynamic eight-week program for international artists, curators, critics, and art historians designed to promote intense creative work and open dialogue. We will focus on theories of excess departing from Georges Bataille and re-examine the Mexican Baroque, and the program culminates in a showcase of new work. I am grateful to receive a scholarship to attend from Hunter College.

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18 April, 2015

Newark, NJ: My video Clay has been selected for the FILMIDEO 2015 film festival at Index Art Center, 237 Washington St in Newark, NJ. The festival is on Saturday, April 18th from 6 - 10pm.

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7 April - 4 May, 2015

NYC: I will be showing paintings in The Artivist Rises, a group exhibition honoring the role artists play in raising consciousness during times of struggle at the 1199SEIU Bread & Roses Cultural Project Gallery, 310 W 43rd St, NY 10036. Opening reception: Friday, 17 April, 6 - 9pm. Organized by African Voices magazine.

Artists include: Jamel Shabazz, Ansel Butler, Ocean Morisset, Demar Douglas, Malik Seneferu, Lisa DuBois, Marcellous Lovelace, Imari DuSauzay, Miatta Kawinzi, Paula Wynter, Jalani Morgan, Jimbe' Carroll, Tyson Hall, Derick Cross, Laronz Murray & Aziza.

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13 - 14 March, 2015

NYC: I will be showing new work at Hunter College MFA Open Studios from 6 - 10pm on Friday & 2 - 6pm on Saturday. The studios are located at 205 Hudson St in Tribeca and I'm in #374.

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4 February - 6 March, 2015

NYC: I will be in the group exhibition After Afropolitan, curated by Aisha Bell Caldwell, Desiree Gordon, Daapo Reo and Yolanda Sangweni & presented by CCCADI, afriPOP!, and Weeksville Heritage Center.

Artists: Cosmo Whyte, Dennis R. Darkeem, Glendalys Medina, Ifeatuanya Chiejina, Imani Shanklin Roberts, Miatta Kawinzi, Murktarat Yussuff, Salym Fayad, Selam Bekele, Valerie Piraino, Vaughn Spann, Aisha Cousins, Delphine Fawundu, Delphine Diallo, Awol Erizku, Derrick Adams, Sana Musasama, Sol Sax, Nontsikelelo Mutiti, Danny Simmons, Simone Leigh, Jamilla Okubo, Folasade Adeoso, Laolu Senbajo and Zina Saro-Wiwa.

Opening Wednesday, 4 February, 6 - 9 pm at Weeksville Heritage Center, 158 Buffalo Ave, Brooklyn NY. Artist talks from 12pm on Saturday, 7 February; I'm up at 4pm.

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23 January - 2 February, 2015

NYC: I will be in the show Exquisite Corpus, an artist-invite-artist, telephone-style chain resulting in a group exhibition. This show is an experiment of our artistic networks, how we communicate through our craft rather than wall statements, and how we create a body of work through many different eyes, resulting not only in a group show but a collective curation. Opening 23 January from 8 - 11pm with a community banquet at the Industry City Distillery, 33 35th St, 6th floor, Brooklyn, NY.

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20 January - 20 February, 2015

Portland, Oregon: My video Star Spangz is included in the juried international group exhibition Translations presented by Emergent Art Space. The online exhibition is here and the live exhibition is at the Feldenheimer Gallery at Reed College, 3203 Southeast Woodstock Boulevard, Portland, OR.
"What is lost in translation and what is found?"

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Friday, 12 December, 2014

630 - 10 pm
Dwyer Cultural Center
258 St Nicholas Ave, NYC

New York: Desiree Mwalimu and Tiziana Rinaldi-Lewis, co founders of The Portal and the Whale Medicine Theater, an interactive and experimental performance company, mount a specially commissioned pre-solstice exploration of Sincerity and Revelation. The performance will be set to the backdrop of work from Miatta Kawinzi and ray ferreira of the Vers Artist Collective, which explores the queer perspective in art and art culture. Join us for the presentation and post performance reflections with these Emerging artists in this maiden voyage of our newest series, EMERGE – enabling New Work, New Art, and New Knowledge. This event is put on by the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI) | $5 in advance, $10 at the door. Children under 12 years of age free. For tickets in advance, please visit emergeseries.eventbrite.com.

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20 November, 2014 - 10 January, 2015

NYC: I will be exhibiting new prints in Small is Beautiful at Flowers Gallery in Chelsea. The opening will be on Thursday, 20 November from 6 - 8 pm at 529 West 20th St.

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27 October, 2014

NYC: I will presenting on my travels and residency in Cape Town, South Africa during May - August at the Kossak Travel Grant reception at 205 Hudson St, Room 202. The event will be from 7 - 9pm.

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17 - 18 October, 2014

NYC: I will be showing new work at Hunter College MFA Open Studios from 6 - 10pm on Friday. The studios are located at 205 Hudson St in Tribeca and I'm in #355. I am also in the Vers Collective group show, From one lover to another, we rely on each other in Room 312.

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28 August, 2014

I am honored to be featured in the online edition of Infinity's Kitchen, an experimental literary journal. My video Star Spangz can be viewed in the latest edition here.

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8 August, 2014

South Africa: I will be showing new work made in Cape Town at Some Bodies, the visiting artists group exhibition at Greatmore Studios, alongside Emoke Bada and Philiswa Lila. The opening reception will be on Friday, 8 August from 6pm, Greatmore Studios, 47-49 Greatmore Street, Woodstock, Cape Town.

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18 May - 23 August, 2014

South Africa: I am honored to be an artist-in-residence at Greatmore Studios in Cape Town for three months with generous funding from Greatmore & the South African National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund. Thanks also to the Kossak Travel Grant from Hunter College.

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14 - 15 March, 2014

NYC: I will be showing new work at Hunter College MFA Open Studios on Friday 14 March from 6 - 10pm and Saturday 15 March from 2 - 6pm. The studios are located at 205 Hudson St in Tribeca and I'm in #355. I am also on the cover of the brochure here.

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9 March, 2014

NYC: I will be included in the 2014 Whitney Houston Biennial curated by Christine Finley. The Biennial will take place on March 9th from 4 - 8:00pm at 20 Jay Street, Suite 207 in Dumbo Brooklyn. (Huffington Post)

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15 & 16 February, 2014

NYC: I will be in the group show B/\MVY AB;$L<Y curated by Pfeiffer McNay and Patrick Mohundro opening Saturday 15 February from 7-10pm. The show is at 2001 7th Ave, NY 10027 in Harlem.

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16 January - 13 February, 2014

NYC: I will be in the Honest Bodies exhibition curated by Zachary Frater at the Windows on Amsterdam Gallery at the City College of New York located at 136th St & Amsterdam Ave. The opening reception will be held on 16 January from 5-7pm, and the closing reception will be held on 11 February from 7-10pm.

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15 January, 2014

NYC: I will be participating in the Flux Factory benefit art auction at Art in General, 79 Walker St, 6th floor. There is an extensive list of inspiring artists who donated work to support this dynamic non-profit space/organization.

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8-9 November, 2013

NYC: I am now a candidate in the Studio Art MFA program at Hunter College. I will be showing new work at Open Studios on Friday, November 8th from 6-10pm and Saturday, November 9th from 2-6pm. The MFA studios are located in Tribeca at 205 Hudson St (entrance on Canal).

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17 December, 2012

NYC: My work will be in the group exhibition Power Play curated by Angela Washko. Opening: 17 December, 5pm-8pm, Roy Wilkins Family Center, 177-01 Baisley Avenue, Jamaica, NY. Participating Artists: Aliya Bonar; Jason Eppink, Kelly Goeller, and Adrienne Silverman; Sarah Kodish Eskind; Miatta Kawinzi; Robert Moya; Alison Nguyen; Don Porcella; Rob Ray; Angela Washko; Tim Winn & Zehra Khan. Presented by Art Connects New York & the Southern Queens Park Association, where my work will join the public collection.

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4 October, 2012

San Francisco, California: I will be performing in Rashaad Newsome's Shade Compositions at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) in the Haas Atrium at 9PM.

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28 - 29 September, 2012

Trinidad & Tobago: My film Urbn Majik will be part of the New Media showcase presented by the trinidad + tobago film fest 12 in collaboration with ARC Magazine. It will screen at the University of the West Indies on the 28th and at Medulla Art Gallery on the 28th & 29th.

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1 Jan - 30 June, 2012

I am honored to be an Artist-in-Residence in Basel/Riehen, Switzerland at the International Exchange & Studio Program Basel (iaab) through Galapagos Art Space.

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14 - 17 June, 2012

Switzerland: Exhibition with Chantelle Gomez, Sophie Jung & Mahatat at Schlosserei in Basel. Opening 14 June at 18h. Rheingasse 33.

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11 - 13 May, 2012

Switzerland: I will be showing my new video Cosmosis in this group show of iaab artists-in-residence.

iaab Group Show
Opening: 11 May, 6-9 PM
Oslostrasse 10, Dreispitz, Switzerland

Iram Ghufran (India) | Miatta Kawinzi (USA) | Sylvie Laplante (Canada) | Yuki Okumura (Japan) |
Zhou Yilun (China)

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24 Feb - 4 April, 2012

Switzerland: I will be exhibiting new work in a group exhibition with Maurice Mbikayi and Janne Nabb & Maria Teeri - Traces from iaab - at dock in Basel. dock has a physical and online archive of local Basel artists and a window exhibition series. The opening is Friday, 24 February at 18h (6pm).

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17 Jan, 2012

NYC: My video work will be screening on television as part of the Flux Factory residents & alumni episode for Vaudeville Park's Video Vaudeville. It will air on 17 January at 10pm (TWC Channel 67, RCN Channel 55).

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1 July - 31 December, 2011

NYC: I am honored to be an artist-in-residence at Flux Factory, a laboratory for cross-disciplinary exploration and platform for local and international artists, with full funding through the NY Community Trust.

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8 Dec, 2011

Press Release
On Thursday, December 8, 2011 from 7-9 PM, Miatta Kawinzi will hold an opening reception for her solo show Am I Phthalo Blue? at 3rdEye(Sol)ation Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. The gallery is located at 1501 Broadway, J train to Halsey. The work will also be on view Saturday, December 10 from 3-7PM, and by appointment. Through an array of mediums including painting, video, and installation, the show will reflect on themes of alienation, urban mysticism, the current socio-political climate, and the potential for transcendence in a climate of concrete.

A poet's step
above we leapt
we flew like blackbirds
flew, were free.