Bio

Miatta Kawinzi is a multi-disciplinary artist, experimental filmmaker, writer, and educator. Her research-informed practice explores cultural hybridity, memory, freedom dreaming, and ecologies of possibility within inner and outer landscapes. Her practice spans installation, sculpture, still and moving images, sound, painting, and poetics. Her work engages themes of inter-connectivity, diaspora, and softness. Of Liberian and Kenyan heritage, Kawinzi was raised in Tennessee and Kentucky and has been based in Brooklyn, NY (Lenapehoking) since 2010. She holds an MFA in Studio Art from Hunter College, and a BA in Interdisciplinary Art & Cultural Theory from Hampshire College.

Solo exhibitions include: “An Alphabet of Unfolding” at Bemis Center, NE (2026), “Numma Yah” at Smack Mellon, NYC (2024), and “Soft is Strong” at CUE Art Foundation, NYC (2021). Select group presentation sites include Anthology Film Archives, the Africa Center, PS122 Gallery, and the Studio Museum in Harlem (NYC); Knoxville Museum of Art (TN); Ann Arbor Film Festival (MI); Pan African Film Festival with LACMA, and ICA Los Angeles (CA); Houston Museum of African American Culture (TX); New Orleans Film Festival (LA); and Des Moines Art Center (IA). Her performance work has been presented by Times Square Arts, the Center for Art, Research and Alliances, and MoMA PopRally x Queens (NYC).

Kawinzi’s work has been supported by Creative Capital, Jerome Foundation, Harpo Foundation, Artadia, Queer|Art, and New York Foundation for the Arts. Select residencies/fellowships include G.A.S. Foundation with Yinka Shonibare Foundation (Lagos, Nigeria), Àsìkò Art School (Cairo, Egypt), Smack Mellon (NYC), MacDowell (NH), Residency Unlimited (NYC), Cité internationale des arts (Paris, France), Bemis Center (NE), SOMA Summer (Mexico City, Mexico), and the Bag Factory (Johannesburg, South Africa). Her work is included in collections at the Studio Museum in Harlem (Harlem Postcards, NYC), Art Connects New York, and Art in Embassies (Liberia). Her practice has received press in Hyperallergic, Filmmaker Magazine, and MoMA Magazine.

She is currently on faculty at the School of Visual Arts in New York, and has also taught at Cornell University and Hampshire College. She additionally works as an arts educator in community spaces, museums, and socially-engaged organizations throughout NYC and beyond.

Artist portrait by Golden for the Queer|Art Community Portrait Project, assisted by Río Sofia & Andrius Alvarez-Backus.