SMFA Traveling Fellows: Helina Metaferia, MFA ‘15 & Samantha Nye, BFA ’10, moderated by Michelle Millar Fisher
(November 3, 2021)
Join alumni artists Helina Metaferia, MFA ‘15 and Samantha Nye, BFA ‘10 as they talk about the process of making their respective solo exhibitions at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, as part of the SMFA Traveling Fellows Program.
Since 1899, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts has awarded Traveling Fellowships (formerly called Traveling Scholarships) to select alumni. As one of the largest endowed art school grant programs in the country, the Traveling Fellowship program provides funds for artists to further develop and inform their practice.
Helina Metaferia, MFA ’15, is an interdisciplinary artist working across collage, assemblage, video, performance, and social engagement. Her work interrogates the body’s relationship to sites, especially as it relates to notions of identity and citizenship. Metaferia received an MFA from SMFA at Tufts University and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture. Her solo exhibition Generations will open at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in fall 2021.
Samantha Nye, BFA ’10, is a painter and video and installation artist living in Philadelphia. As a child model, she learned early about performance, identity, and class aspiration. Her work reframes seduction through reenactments of 1960s pop culture. Her paintings, videos, and installations highlight aging bodies, celebrate Queer kinship, and facilitate an intergenerational dialogue about sexuality and pleasure. Samantha currently has her first solo show, My Heart’s in A Whirl, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, as well as a painting in the MFA group exhibition New Light: Encounters and Connections.
Michelle Millar Fisher is a curator and an architecture and design historian. She received an MA and an M.Phil in Art History from the University of Glasgow, as well as an M.Phil from The Graduate Center at the City University of New York (CUNY), where she is completing her doctorate in art history. She is currently the Ronald C. and Anita L. Wornick Curator of Contemporary Decorative Arts at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Her work focuses on the intersections of people, power, design, and craft.
