January 20—April 24, 2022

Art for the Future: Artists Call and Central American Solidarities focuses on the seminal 1980s activist campaign, Artists Call Against US Intervention in Central America. Growing out of the friendships, solidarity networks, and political organizing amongst artists and activists such as Daniel Flores y Ascencio, Lucy Lippard, Doug Ashford, Leon Golub, and Coosje van Bruggen, the campaign resulted in exhibitions, performances, poetry readings, film screenings, concerts, and other cultural and educational events in over 27 cities across the United States and Canada. The exhibition highlights Artists Call’s history through a selection of activities and works from the 31 exhibitions and over 1,100 artists who participated in New York City and references Artists Call’s legacy today in new forms of inter-American solidarity networks and visual alliances. This exhibition is the first cross-campus presentation by Tufts University Art Galleries.

August 2021-2022

This commissioned billboard and installation by designer, artist, and archivist Josh MacPhee welcomes the SMFA at Tufts and surrounding communities into reflection on a year of deep loss and radical change. The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare and exacerbated longstanding social, economic, and racial inequities that govern access to health care, housing, information, opportunity, and basic necessities for survival, while at the same time ushering in new forms of protest, solidarity, and mutual aid.

Jan 24 - Apr 23, 2023

For re:imagining collections, four artists, Ali Cherri, Nicole Cherubini, NIC Kay, and SANGREE, were invited respond to Meso-American and Mediterranean antiquities in the Tufts University Permanent Collection. Each artist developed new artistic reactions inspired by the collection, considering the ethical and moral implications of relevant museological frameworks.

August 30 - October 23, 2022

Puerto Rican-born, Oakland-based conceptual interdisciplinary artist Sofía Córdova works with performance, music, video, photography, sculpture and installation. Presenting an extensive body of work that highlights Cordova’s engagements with climate capitalism and its entanglement with colonial erasure, this solo exhibition includes a newly commissioned installation GUILLOTINÆ WannaCry Act Green: Sauvage, Savage, Salvaje and video works from Córdova’s series SIN AGUA (presented together for the first time) and dawn_chorus.

August 30—December 5, 2021

Staying with the Trouble is a group exhibition that proposes strategies and coping mechanisms for navigating the current political and socio economic climate, which seems to be simultaneously slipping backward into the archaic and forward into the apocalyptic.

August 30 - December 11, 2022

The Sun Rises in the West and Sets in the East, guest curated by curator and writer Sara Raza, explores social and cultural seismic shifts and how the traditional culture and classification of science, philosophy, biology, and economics have collapsed in contemporary society. The exhibition features 11 contemporary artists who challenge geopolitical narratives, systems, and power dynamics, including new and recent works by Lida Abdul, Kader Attia, Yael Bartana, Asli Çavuşoğlu, Ergin Çavuşoğlu, Ali Cherri, Anton Ginzburg, Emily Jacir, Nadia Kaabi-Linke, Nyugen E. Smith, and Nari Ward.