Afro-Am Studies Alum Sofia Meadows-Muriel Featured in Two Portraits on View at The Met

Two portraits of Sofia Meadows-Muriel ’22, who majored in Afro-Am Studies, are currently on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of the exhibition, “Hear Me Now: The Black Potters of Old Edgefield, South Carolina,” on view through February 2023.

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The works, entitled “Birth and Rebirth and Rebirth,” were painted by artist Robert Pruitt in 2019.

Commissioned by the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston, the portraits show Meadows-Muriel wearing a quilt evocative of a work by the late African-American artist Harriet Powers and pouring water from one of the face vessels shown nearby. The art is part of a series depicting different generations of Black women and Black femme folks who served as community organizers in Boston.

Seeing the portraits at The Met for the first time, “I felt nostalgia for a person that I used to be, seeing my younger self,” they say. “I remember the things I was thinking about, the things I was passionate about at that time. Why I like that portrait so much is that [Pruitt] embodied that youthful, fiery spirit. It reminded me to keep that.”

Meadows-Muriel was working as an intern at MFA Boston when they were asked to be part of the project by their bosses, Nadia Harden, then MFA’s senior manager of audience development and engagement, and Makeeba McCreary, who had joined the MFA in January 2019 as its first chief of learning and community engagement.

“They knew that I was doing a lot of work in the community at that time,” Meadows-Muriel says. “I definitely think it was a right-time, right-place moment.”

The day Meadows-Muriel posed was “a regular workday,” they say, which made the news that the art was displayed in The Met a welcome surprise.

“The artist really honored the different parts of me and who I was as a person. That was really amazing, and that’s what made me have pride when I was there,” they say. “I definitely feel very lucky to have had the opportunity.”

But Meadows-Muriel admits it was surreal to be in The Met, looking at portraits of themselves alongside other museum patrons.

“People were taking pictures of it and didn’t even know I was right there,” they say with a laugh. “There’s something about that, you can’t explain it! I’ll be in someone’s phone forever.”

Meadows-Muriel graduated from UMass Amherst in spring 2022 with honors from the Commonwealth Honors College, as well as a secondary major in Social Thought and Political Economy from the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. A transfer student from Ithaca College, they became very involved with campus organizing and student life once they arrived at UMass.

Currently, Meadows-Muriel is working as a teacher in residence at the Margarita Muniz Academy in Boston, the district’s first dual language high school, as well as the Director of Partnerships at Unity Circles, an organization focused on uplifting communities most impacted by carceral system.

“What I appreciate about being in spaces with other Black and brown people is that they have always given me opportunities because they believed in me,” they say. “Now, I’m applying to graduate schools, and I’d love to get a Ph.D. in history and Africana studies with the hopes of being a history teacher. I would love to be able to teach undergrad, prison education programs, community colleges, or help educate anyone that’s in alternative learning spaces.”

Britt Rusert, UMass Amherst associate professor of Afro-Am Studies and director of undergraduate studies, says, “They are a truly exceptional student, a rising star, and a wonderful representative of HFA.”

Yolanda Covington-Ward, chair of the W.E.B. DuBois Department of Afro-American Studies adds, “Sofia Meadows-Muriel represents the dynamic and engaged types of students that are attracted to our major in Afro-American Studies. We are proud of the many ways that our alumni are impacting the world.”

As for their time within the Department of Afro-Am Studies, Meadows-Muriel says, “It was such a
transformative learning environment for me. That department is doing great work, and they deserve way more respect, recognition, and resources.”

View “Birth and Rebirth and Rebirth,” now on display at The Met.