For the past seven years, multidisciplinary artist Helina Metaferia has been “building an army of women,”—that is, mixed-media portraits of women activists and their descendants. These portraits make up a series called By Way of Revolution and were recently on view in a group show called “Facial Recognition” at the Jane Lombard Gallery in New York City. The project is her way of combatting the increasing public erasure of marginalized groups’ contributions to history. It is also a personal project—Metaferia grew up outside of Washington, D.C., as a first-generation Ethiopian American, and activism runs in the family. Her father teaches political science, and her mother was president of the Center for the Rights of Ethiopian Women. When her mother died, Metaferia “was thinking of her legacy and the legacy of activist women of color, and oftentimes how their contributions are often overlooked in liberation movements.”
Helina Metaferia, an army of activists
Noelani Kirschner , The American Scholar, April 7, 2025
