Past Events
2025
Intertwining Portrait and Mask
Nastassja Swift in conversation with Paula Mans
Sunday, October 5, 2025 at 4 p.m. EST
Mask performance created by Nastassja Swift. Photo by Marlon Turner
Join us 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 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’s Master of Arts in Art Education.
Watch the recording here:
2025
Women and Autobiographical Identities within Puppetry
A Women & Masks-sponsored event at FMTM
Saturday, September 27, 2025 at 9 AM CET
Dr. Felice Amato of BU and Women & Masks, Dr. Cristina Grazioli of the University of Padua, Roberta Colombo of Teatro Drago and Arrivano dal Mare, and Dr. Cariad Astles of the University of Exeter present a UNIMA International-sponsored panel at the Festival Mondial des Théâtres de Marionnettes in Charleville-Meziers, France. The panel included a welcome by Louise Lapoint, president of UNIMA-International and the collaboration of independent researcher Alissa Mello. Participating artists were Yael Rasooly (Israel), Raven Kaliana (US and UK), Nikki Charlesworth (UK), Magali Chouinard (Quebec), and Dominga Gutiérrez of Silencio Blanco (Chile).
This is the second in a continuing series of panels (see below).
Flier for the event: Écriture autobiographique et identité dans les arts de la marionnette
2025
Making Masks with Melody Anderson
2025
TransAtlantic Puppet Masters, Alison Duddle and Sandy Spieler
A Conversation Between Friends
2024
Women and Autobiographical Identities within Puppet Theatre
International Symposium
2024
2/14/2024 – Les Masques: A Conversation with Three Francophone Mask Artists
2023
5/20–5/29/2023 – Sartori Mask Residency
2021-22
Mask Artist and Photographer Melissa Meier
9/21/2021–4/21/2022 Women and Masks:
A Transdisciplinary Arts Research Conference
Click here to view the conference archive.
You can also read about the conference in this report by Felice Amato: https://pirjournal.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2024/07/10/women-and-masks-reflections-on-a-conference-a-project-and-a-field/ . Download the PDF version here: Women and Masks: Reflections on a Conference, a Project, and a Field.