Photo credit: KaMag (courtesy María Magdalena Campos-Pons) Vignettes in 3 Sessions: An Immersive Ancestral Experience with KaMag (María Magdalena Campos-Pons and Kamaal Malak) December 5, 2025 6PM CADVC One-night-only outdoor projection and performance Friday, December 5, 2025 6–7 p.m. reception; 7 p.m. performance Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture (CADVC), UMBC The Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture (CADVC) at UMBC presents a special one-night-only outdoor screening and performance with KaMag, the performance collaboration between artist María Magdalena Campos-Pons and musician Kamaal Malak. Vignettes in 3 Sessions: An Immersive Ancestral Experience with KaMag (María Magdalena Campos–Pons and Kamaal Malak) is an interactive performance created for CADVC. KaMag members of the public into a shared ritual environment—“a sacred space where ancestral energies transcend temporal boundaries, creating a transformative portal between past and present.” The performance unfolds as a multi-media, multi-sensory sanctuary combining spoken word, live music, sound design, and other sensorial experiences in an intimate, participatory format. The performance launches a new public projection of “I am Soil – My Tears Are Water” (2025), a single-channel video by Kamaal Malak and María Magdalena Campos-Pons that has been adapted for the UMBC Fine Arts Building amphitheater projection program. Conceived for large-scale projection and collective viewing, the work transforms the amphitheater into a reflective gathering space, bringing KaMag’s layered meditations on ancestry, land, and healing into public space. KaMag’s recent work has included major multi-sensory performances at institutions such as Tate Modern and KaMag’s recent work has included major performances at institutions such as Tate Modern and the São Paulo Biennial, where Campos-Pons and Malak have developed a practice that bridges performance, sound, and moving image to explore Afro-diasporic spiritual, historical, and ecological inheritances. This CADVC event is presented as part of UMBC’s Arts+ initiative, a new campus-wide platform that celebrates and connects UMBC’s vibrant and multi-faceted arts scene through public-facing programming and interdisciplinary creative research. Arts+ positions UMBC as a welcoming arts destination for the region, bringing together students, faculty, visiting artists, and community audiences for exhibitions, performances, and other collaborative events. CADVC also thanks CIRCA at UMBC for their support of the event. About KaMag María Magdalena Campos-Pons was born in in 1959 in the province of Matanzas, in the town of La Vega, Cuba. She grew up on a sugar plantation in a family with Nigerian, Hispanic and Chinese roots. Her Nigerian ancestors were brought to Cuba as slaves in the 19th century and passed on traditions, rituals, and beliefs. Her polyglot heritage profoundly influences Campos-Pons’ artistic practice, which combines diverse media including photography, performance, painting, sculpture, film, and video. Her work is autobiographical, investigating themes of history, memory, gender and religion and how they inform identity. Kamaal Malak is a multifaceted musician, producer, academic, and researcher whose career spans diverse areas of the music industry. As a bassist and songwriter with the 2x Grammy-winning group Arrested Development, they significantly influenced conscious hip-hop in the early 1990s. His versatility as an artist is further exemplified by his collaborations with country music icon Shania Twain, bridging genres and expanding his musical reach. Beyond his performance career, Malak has made significant strides in music production, blending hip-hop, electronic, and world music influences. About Dell Marie Hamilton Dell Marie Hamilton’s expansive multi-media practice includes curatorial projects as well as painting, drawing, sculpture, video, photography, and performance art, which has been featured at the MFA/Boston, the Clark Art Institute, and the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College. In 2019, she was a participating artist in the “Ríos Intermitentes” exhibition curated by Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons for the Havana Biennial. In 2021, she was also a recipient of the ICA/Boston’s James and Audrey Foster Prize. Her work has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, The Boston Globe, Hyperallergic, Art in America, NKA: Contemporary Journal of African Art, and, most recently, in Kimberly Juanita Brown’s new book, Black Elegies: Meditations on the Art of Mourning (MIT Press, 2025), as well as in the 2024 documentary film Out of the Picture, written and directed by journalist Mary Louise Schumacher. She is currently the acting director of the Alain Locke Gallery at Harvard’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. Her work is also in the collections of Google, Tufts University, and the MIT List Visual Art Center. Courtesy of Dell Marie Hamilton About M’Balou Camara M’Balou Camara is the Program Coordinator for the Shriver Peaceworker Fellows Program at UMBC and a contracting grant writer with Benvenuti Arts. With a background spanning public policy, international development, and arts consulting, she has collaborated with organizations such as the African Development Bank, the Cook Center for Social Equity, The Sadie Collective, and Elements Urban Arts Collective. Originally from Conakry, Guinea, M’Balou was raised in Montgomery County, Maryland, as the youngest of seven girls. Beyond her academic and consulting work, she is a DJ, storyteller, and artistic researcher whose practice weaves poetry, sound, time in nature, and community-building. Driven by a passion for exploring and documenting how art heals, M’Balou is preparing to launch The HeART Reflex, a podcast on the reflections and dreams of artists across the African diaspora. M’Balou Camara. Credit: Reese Bland Visitor Information For links to maps, directions, and parking information, visit: cadvc.umbc.edu/visit-us Our exhibitions and events are free and open to the public for full participation by all individuals regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or any other protected category under applicable federal law, state law, and the University’s nondiscrimination policy. If you need specific accommodations at one of our events, whether in person or online, or to experience an exhibition, please contact CADVC at cadvc@umbc.edu or 410-455-3188 as soon as possible.
