Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons

María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Art, secured a $1 million grant from the Mellon Foundation to advance the work of the Engine for Art, Democracy & Justice (EADJ), which she founded. Read More

A multidisciplinary artist from Cuba, María Magdalena Campos-Pons creates installations that showcase her personal experiences as a Cuban woman as well as document displacement and inequality in the Caribbean. She was awarded a 2023 MacArthur Fellowship last October from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Read More

María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Art, has been named the 2024 SEC Faculty Achievement Award winner from Vanderbilt University. Her artistic work spans a variety of media, including photography, performance, sculpture, drawing, painting and video. She employs them in immersive installations that explore her experience as a Cuban woman and the broader issues facing Caribbean people, including displacement and inequality. Read More

María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Art, has been awarded a 2023 MacArthur Fellowship for her work exploring personal and collective histories across the Caribbean. Read More

Four Vanderbilt and VUMC faculty—María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Kimryn Rathmell, Keivan Stassun and Major Jackson—have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a record number of elections from Vanderbilt in a single year. Read More

A $700,000 grant awarded to institutions that collaborate to administer the Engine for Art, Democracy and Justice program in Tennessee is designed to allow advancement of the program’s reach and enhance the visibility of the arts in Nashville and across the state. Read More

Vanderbilt University’s Engine for Art, Democracy and Justice will focus on art as a means of resistance and achieving societal change when it resumes its two-year program, Artistic Activism and the Power of Collective Resistance, on Sept. 7. Read More

Join the Frist Art Museum and the Center for Latin American, Caribbean and Latinx Studies (CLACX) at Vanderbilt University for a virtual panel on Thursday, March 24, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. CT inspired by the exhibition "On the Horizon: Contemporary Cuban Art from the Pérez Art Museum Miami." Read More

The Engine for Art, Democracy and Justice will present "Artistic Activism and the Power of Collective Resistance," a series of speakers and panels focusing on art as an act of solidarity and resistance, starting March 16 and continuing through 2023. Read More

This semester’s inaugural Vanderbilt History Seminar will explore the work of artist Kara Walker and the memory of slavery. The Sept. 30 lecture corresponds with the Frist Art Museum’s ongoing exhibition "Kara Walker: Cut to the Quick" and the Vanderbilt Fine Arts Gallery’s "Sympathetic Magic: Works of Faith, Healing and Transformation," which includes Walker's works. Read More

Afro-Cuban American artist Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons and the Engine for Art, Democracy and Justice, a trans-institutional partnership that she founded at Vanderbilt University, have received prestigious awards this spring. Read More

Through a partnership with Vanderbilt University and other Nashville organizations, Fisk University will host a large-scale public artwork by prominent Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama starting April 21. Read More

Vanderbilt University’s Engine for Art, Democracy and Justice initiative has announced its spring programs, which will feature works by African American composer Julius Eastman and Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama. Read More

Vanderbilt Professor of Art Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons says her vision for "When We Gather," a new film and art project, was influenced by remarks from Vice President Kamala Harris, the first woman and first woman of color to serve in that role. The online premiere for the three-minute film, which pays tribute to heroines of the past, visionaries of the present and leaders of the future, will be on Wednesday, Jan. 27, at 6 p.m. CT. Read More

Vanderbilt University is launching "Engine for Art, Democracy and Justice," a new initiative conceived by professor Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons and focused on healing at a time of social unrest. Read More

The work of Cuban-born artist and professor Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons defies categorization—but she wants it to change the world. “Art is an archive of the minutiae of life,” she says. “Art is alchemy. It’s an incredibly mysterious process.” Read More