In this program, organized in conjunction with “Simone Leigh: The Waiting Room,” artist María Magdalena Campos-Pons presented a performative mediation on survival. As part of her performance, she negotiated narratives of pain, loss, and resilience, while reimagining herself in a time of societal and geopolitical transitions.

Born in Matanzas, Cuba, in 1959, and based in Boston, Campos-Pons has established an international career as an interdisciplinary artist and teacher. Campos-Pons draws from her Afro-Cuban and American identities, connecting migratory experiences through a range of mediums, objects, installations, and in situ actions. Influenced by Yoruba spiritual practices from Africa that survived the Middle Passage as well as syncretic forms in Cuba, she redresses and reclaims cultural, ancestral, and personal memories, as well as new beginnings, through ritual engagement with materials and spatial experiences.