Intertwining Portrait and Mask: Nastassja Swift in Conversation with Paula Mans

Join the Women & Masks Project for this virtual conversation between artists Nastassja Swift and Paula Mans, exploring masking and portraiture, as well as materiality and metaphor.

Nastassja Swift is a multidisciplinary artist based in Richmond, VA, who reimagines portraiture through her use of wool, creating masks and related objects used in performance. Her work explores geographical histories, ancestry, ritual practices, and community. Among many awards, she received the 2024 Textile Society of America Brandford/Elliott Award and the 2023 Craft Research Fund Artist Fellowship. Swift's work was featured in Stuffed, a 2023 exhibition in BU's Faye G., Jo, and James Stone Gallery.

Paula Mans is a Washington, DC–based mixed media collagist who spent many formative years living in Tanzania, Mozambique, Eswatini, and Brazil. Her collages—disjointed pieces fused to tell a single story—reflect the interconnectedness of the African diaspora. Mans has received numerous awards, including a Sustainable Arts Foundation grant, a DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Fellowship, and a Fulbright Program Research Award. She is a graduate of Boston University College of Fine Arts' Master of Arts in Art Education program.

This event is sponsored by the Women & Masks Project, Boston University Office for the Arts, BU College of Fine Arts, CFA School of Visual Arts, and the Department of Art Education. For more information about the event, email wmmasks@bu.edu. To learn more about the Women & Masks Project, visit sites.bu.edu/womenandmasks.