Artist Helina Metaferia infuses solo exhibit 'Syntropy' with research and activism

A woman sits atop a shining golden throne. Small images of activists march across her body, family photos adorn spaces around and on her, and archival African Liberation Day newspapers fan around her feet. She gazes at the viewer with a strength uplifted by those who came before her.

This woman is artist Helina Metaferia in a self-portrait titled “Enthroned (I am an institution; I am an altar; I am an artwork in/of/for progress).” The piece is a hand cut and assembled mixed media collage, and similar in creation to more than 70 “headdresses” she has created. However, it’s the first time she has depicted herself in a long time.

“I was shocked at being on the other side of the table…I haven't done a self portrait in years, even though I was doing them before, so that alone was like, ‘Okay, I'm being gazed upon,’” she said. “So it was a real eye-opening experience, but so valuable and it made me appreciate and respect the people that have worked with me up until this point.”

The self-portrait is part of Metaferia’s solo exhibition “Syntropy” at Praise Shadows Art Gallery on view through Dec. 20. It will also be the final exhibition in the gallery’s Brookline space.

Metaferia is an Ethiopian American interdisciplinary and research-based artist. She attended Tufts University’s School of Museum of Fine Arts in Boston for graduate school. Metaferia now lives and works in New York City and teaches art and social practice at Brown University.

Her first solo exhibition at Praise Shadows was “All Put Together” in 2022. The exhibition included collage, video, sculpture, and performance work, and it was presented in conjunction with her other solo show “Generations” at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Metaferia received a Traveling Fellowship from Tufts that granted funding for the development of her work. Michelle Millar Fisher, curator at the MFA, had the opportunity to choose one artist from those who received the fellowship for a solo exhibition, and she landed on Metaferia.

“I really appreciated the fact that she is a strong researcher, an artist who's really interested in archives. She's often going through archives that think about the Civil Rights struggle, Black Power, et cetera, in many ways inspired by the work of her parents who are both academics and activists,” said Fisher.

These exhibitions as well as “Syntropy” are part of  Metaferia’s socially engaged project for the last seven years titled “By Way of Revolution.” This work revolves around the history of activism and “the impact of civil rights eras of the past on today’s social justice movements,” according to the artist’s website.

As part of this project, Metaferia opens up performance-as-protest workshops to women and femme identifying people of color. Participants work to ground their body in physical movement and engage in meditation and journaling.

“Often there's a lot of sharing amongst participants who don't know each other but become quite close quite quickly because of the nature of the work,” said Metaferia.

Some of these people become sitters in her work. “ I photograph my sitters and then I combine their image with archives from their direct ancestry, from family photos sometimes, but also from local libraries to that workshop,” said Metaferia. “I help to scan and digitize collections of what's considered revolutionary archives.”

Metaferia said some sitters return to participate in performance art with her, so their relationships reach beyond one collaboration. She estimates she has organized eight or nine workshops nationally and internationally with a year and a half to two year commitment working with each community.

“ I think that this idea of like femme solidarity, whether it's cis and trans folks, whether it's people of different, ethnic backgrounds, there's just this solidarity, that comes about where we are looking to build a better world together,” she said.

Metaferia used to paint figures, but felt disconnected from the work. Her mother was an Ethiopian women’s rights activist, and after she passed away in 2016, Metaferia knew she needed to change the way she worked.

“ I was thinking about legacies a lot and what we leave behind and documentation, history, and thinking critically about what's out there and wanting to add to the archive,” she said. “So a lot of my work is about adding to it, but I wanted to do it in a way that felt relational and that felt like it was making real impact in the world and not just symbolic.”

Yng-Ru Chen, founder and CEO of Praise Shadows, admired Metaferia’s work as an educator and how that informs her practice.

“ I think we need artists who are able to be community builders, but also artists who are not just the voices of people, but also bringing them visually into these beautiful portraits,” she said.

“Syntropy” builds on all of this previous work and finding natural order within activism.

“ It means the opposite of entropy, and it's about when moments in our biology come together and sync up and organize naturally for the betterment of life, so it's very life enhancing,” said Metaferia. “I'm fascinated with the organizing work we do in activism, but also just putting things in order, literally like with collaging, like how does this look compositionally?”

The exhibition includes collages, sculptures, printmaking, and textile art. Some of Metaferia’s sculptural work symbolizes anti-colonial movements in Ethiopia like a brass crown and a throne. There’s also what she calls artifacts like her grandmother’s dresser, which evokes the question, “How do we archive our lives?”

“Syntropy” will be the final exhibition in Praise Shadow’s space at 313 A Harvard Street. Chen said the gallery’s five year lease was up, and it will be moving to a larger space in downtown Boston and reopening in spring 2026.

This piece has been updated with the exhibition's closing date on Dec. 20 and to note the gallery's plans to reopen in spring 2026.