Artistic Narratives and Social Engagement | 10/9, 12:30-1:30PM EST
Sarah “Val” Valente, SMFA staff (moderator)
Sarah ‘Val’ Valente is an artist & educator currently living and working in Boston. Her creative practice investigates themes of identity as well as the effect of power and privilege on access to education. She uses portraiture, silkscreen images, mold-making, quilting, and painting techniques to explore these topics. In a 2019 installation Blanket Statement at Brandeis’ Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Creative Arts, she quilted over 40 silkscreen images of individual’s bookshelves. Hybrid vocabularies come together in printed image, muslin and found cotton to silk and chiffon in an effort to highlight the various levels of privilege and access.
Additionally, Valente has worked with youth and public art in Central Mass. In 2016, she was recognized for her contributions to Worcester’s creative community with a Key to the City and by Worcester Public Schools via the Thomas Jefferson Service Award. She holds a BA in Chemistry and Art from College of the Holy Cross, MBA from Assumption University, and Post-Bacc Certificate from Brandies University. Valente is currently the Assistant Director of Student Affairs the SMFA at Tufts University.
Karen Hampton, MassArt faculty (panelist)
Karen Hampton is an internationally recognized conceptual fiber artist, addressing issues of colorism and kinship within the Black community. Hampton’s art practice is the synthesis of memory, history, time and cloth. Hampton, a student of cultural relationships, seeks to break through stereotypes and address issues related to being a woman. Using her training in the fiber arts and anthropology, she brings together the roles of the weaver, the dyer, the painter, the embroiderer, and the storyteller. Hampton’s artwork is held in the collections of the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum, Hamilton College, Clinton, NEW YORK, and the Honolulu Museum of Art, Honolulu, Hawaii and she received the coveted Eureka Prize from the Fleishhacker Foundation in 2008. Hampton is an Assistant Professor at MassArt, Boston, MA
Jhona Xaviera, SMFA alum (panelist)
Jhona Xaviera is a Dominican-American, Boston based multimedia chimæra who weaves together visual and performing arts into stories that embody the multiplicities of their Afro-Latinx trans experience. They completed their undergrad with the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in 2020 where they grounded their personal experience upon art historical research. Poetry, music, and dance are the elements manifested through their installations, video, and photography, where they create a mythos based on radical self-love and healing. They build realms out of the yearnings, skepticisms, and frustrations of their ancestors which have infiltrated gallery, performance, research, and virtual spaces across Boston. As their muse, guide, and highest self, they channel Asyra: the many-faced goddess of light you may only wish to worship.
Naledi Masilo, NEC student/
Dreaming Girls Foundation (panelist)
Passionately pursuing her drive to explore the jazz tradition and her African heritage, Naledi Masilo -Vocalist, Composer, Teaching Artist and Arts Administrator- packed her suitcase and moved half-way across the world to surge a music career bubbling with opportunities. Naledi grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa. She graduated with a Bachelor of Social Sciences in International Relations and Sociology from the University of Cape Town and is currently studying Jazz Performance at The New England Conservatory. In 2019, Naledi was a resident at the Kennedy Center through Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead Program, where she was mentored by the likes of Dee Dee Bridgewater and Jason Moran. She has also been invited to participate in the Banff International Jazz and Creative Music workshop in Calgary, Canada. Naledi is the Founding Director of The Dreaming Girls Foundation, a South African based non-profit organization that cultivates women and girls in the arts to be leaders and critically conscious members of society.
Ameya Okamoto, SMFA student (panelist)
Artist + organizer Ameya Okamoto is a dynamic 20-year-old whose creative work lives at the intersections of art and social justice. In 2018 she was named a Top 6 Rising Art Star by the NY Post. She is a 2019 Adobe Creativity Scholar and Laidlaw Fellow, researching the role of protest art in social movements and sustainable beautification. She offers digital downloads of work she’s created in partnership with Don’t Shoot Portland and Black Lives Matter Greater NY, and is the founder and creative director of IRRESISTIBLE, inspiring creatives everywhere to consider art’s role in social progress.