Citation for Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons

Maria Magdalena Campos Pons. Sculptor. Photographer. Artist. Storyteller. “I collect and tell the stories of forgotten people,” you once wrote. Through your work, you make these same people and stories unforgettable.

Your art is a celebration and reflection of an incredible family story. Born in La Vega, Cuba, as the descendent of Nigerians who were brought to the island and enslaved in the 19th century, you sought to understand your parents’ and grandparents’ experience from a young age: Their rituals and practices. Their traditions. Their joy, even in the face of incredible struggle and hardship. In doing so, you knew you would better understand your own place in the world.

Your work has no use for traditional chronology or space — it collapses time periods, geographical space, and connects us all to the Afro-Cuban diaspora  and families like your own. Your topics are wide-ranging: The brutality of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade; the labor of Black bodies on sugar plantations; Catholic and Santería religious practices; the Cuban uprisings that would inspire revolution. You bring each to life with an urgency and connection to the challenges of our day — from the challenges of immigrants to the systemic racism still at work in America.

Your art has made a global impact in some of the most well-known and prestigious institutions in the world — gracing the halls of MoMA, the Venice Biennale, the Smithsonian, the Art Institute of Chicago, and so many more. 

Yet your impact reaches far beyond what is found in any museum. Your projects and organizations bring artists and women of color together — in your native Cuba and far beyond: from Intermittent Rivers in Matanzas, Cuba, where you have brought together generations of Cuban artists with international colleagues; to When We Gather, a powerful project celebrating the women who have played an elemental role in the progress of the United States; to the Engine for Art Democracy and Justice at Vanderbilt, where you teach — launched in the wake of 2020’s long-overdue call for social justice.

Maria Magdalena Campos Pons — for your brilliant and thought-provoking work; for your gift in making the past come alive; for your ability to make us see ourselves in the stories you tell — it is our honor to present you with this 2023 Barnard Medal of Distinction. Congratulations.