Helina Metaferia is an interdisciplinary artist working in performance, video art, installation, sculpture and mark-making. As a first generation Ethiopian-American, Helina's work has been informed by an interest in diaspora narratives, transnational identity, and gender studies.


A 2015 MFA graduate from Tufts University/School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Helina has been selected as one of the "top MFA students to watch" by the Boston Globe and was chosen to be the Graduate Student Speaker at the 2015 SMFA commencement. She is the recipient of the Montague Travel Grant, Boit Award, SMFA President's Research Grant and Tufts Graduate Student Research Award. She is currently a full time AICAD Post-Graduate Teaching Fellow at San Francisco Art Institute, teaching performance art and new genres to undergraduate and graduate students.

Helina's work has been exhibited in solo and group shows at the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, MA), Museum of Modern Art (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia), Grace Exhibition Space (Brooklyn, NY), Galeria Labirynt (Lublin, Poland), International Visions Gallery (Washington, DC), Defibrillator Gallery (Chicago, IL) and more. She recently performed with artist Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons during the Carrie Mae Weems Retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum (New York, NY) and at the 12th Havana Biennial (Havana, Cuba).