Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons

Biography

Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons’ body of work grapples with the coordinates of diasporic identity formation: migration, displacement, collective memory, spirituality and gender.

Her multidisciplinary practice interweaves autobiographical elements of her Afro-Cuban identity and heritage with historical narratives of the African diaspora. Through the convergence of the personal and the political, tracing parallels across the present realities and contested histories of diasporic experience, Campos-Pons’ work at once makes sense of her own family history and has universal relevance.

Her work has been exhibited worldwide at the Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University, Milwaukee (2021); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2020); Museum of Cultural History Oslo (2019); 13th Havana Biennale (2019); Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago (2018); California African American Museum, Los Angeles (2018); documenta 14, Germany (2017); Prospect.4 Triennial, New Orleans (2017); 3rd Biennale Bahia Museum of Archive, Brazil (2014); Guggenheim Museum, New York (2014); MOCA, Miami (2014); and Biennial of Contemporary African Art, Dakar (2004), among others. She also served as Artist-Curator of the 13th Havana Art Biennial (2019).

Campos-Pons’ work can be found in the collections of several institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Ludwig Forum for International Art, Germany; Perez Art Museum, Miami; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; and Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

She is a founding member of the Intermittent Rivers, a Biennial Project in Matanzas, Cuba; Engine for Art Democracy and Justice at Vanderbilt, Nashville, USA; and When We Gather, a multi-faceted art project celebrating the elemental role women have played in the United States.

Campos-Pons is the recipient of many grants and awards, such as the Perez Prize from the Perez Art Museum Miami (2021); Anonymous Was a Woman Award, Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair, Tennessee (2018), among others.

She received a BFA in painting from the Higher Institute of Art, Havana (1985) and an MFA in painting and media arts from the Massachusetts College of Art, Boston (1988).

Born in 1959, in LaVega, Matanzas, Cuba, she lives and works in Nashville, USA.

SAF participation:
Sharjah Biennial 15 (2023)
March Meeting 2023