Creative Counterpoints was born in 2016 thanks to a MassArt Foundation Fellowship Grant. Since then, we have hosted annual conversations between the MassArt community and artists, writers, and other culture makers who live and work at the intersections of geographies, languages, identities, and artistic media. The propelling impetus of the series is to highlight creative and mediatic production that centers on the non-neutrality of craft, and uses craft as a set of cultural tools and expectations to be manipulated in the interest of addressing and transforming social inequities.

Each event in the series always includes student participation and QAs. The speaker's work is discussed in many classes, and always included in that year's curriculum. A reception, book selling, and book signing would take place after the event.

Past Creative Counterpoints speakers include authors Valeria Luiselli ( Tell me how it Ends, Lost Children Archive) and Nnedi Okorafor ( Akata Witch, Binti), film studies scholar Jack Halberstam (Trans*, Female Masculinity), and visual artist Sherazade Garcia as well as a panel of transcultural MassArt alumni.

This year's CC speaker is renowned artist, Vincent Valdez, on the occasion of the publication of In Memory (Radius, Fall’22), the first book-length study of Valdez’s work.

Vincent Valdez blends large, representational paintings—the scale of which recalls Western traditions of history painting and mural painting, and cinema—with contemporary subject matters. 

In Memory comprises a selection from Valdez’s body of work, curatorial essays, and poetry inspired by and conversing with Valdez’s work.

The artist will discuss the scope of his work and the materials and inspiration of In Memory. He will then be in conversation with MassArt students and the public.