Miatta Kawinzi (she/they) is a multidisciplinary artist working with sculptural installation, still and moving images, the voice and body, gesture, language, objects, space and sound to explore practices of re-imagining the self, identity, and culture through abstraction and poetics. Their work engages interior and exterior landscapes to illuminate themes of inter-connectivity, hybridity, and diaspora. They received an MFA in Studio Art from Hunter College and a BA in Interdisciplinary Art & Cultural Theory from Hampshire College. Her work has been presented at the Africa Center, the ICA LA, Ann Arbor Film Festival, New Orleans Film Festival, CUE Art Foundation, the Studio Museum in Harlem, BRIC, and Maysles Cinema, among other spaces. Her work has been supported by Smack Mellon, MacDowell, the Cité internationale des arts, POV Spark, the Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, Queer|Art, and the NY Artadia Award. She has taught at SVA, Cornell University, and Hampshire College. She is currently developing new multidisciplinary work that thinks through the notion of liberation as an ongoing process.

Smack Mellon is a nonprofit arts organization located in DUMBO, Brooklyn. Smack Mellon’s mission is to nurture and support emerging, under-recognized mid-career and women artists in the creation and exhibition of new work, by providing exhibition opportunities, studio workspace, and access to equipment and technical assistance for the realization of ambitious projects. We see ourselves as a vehicle whereby under-represented artists can create, explore and exhibit their creative ideas outside the concerns of the commercial art world, offering many artists the exposure and recognition they deserve.