Maria Fong is an artist from Berkeley, California. She is currently earning her BFA at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. Maria works in hand-drawn and stop-motion animation, drawing, performance art, and bookmaking. She is dedicated to making work that tells silenced stories and fosters interaction between people. Her collaborative artworks explore racialized and politicized spaces, community building, and expansive Asian American identities. Fong was a 2020 Pao Art Center Residence Lab artist, a program that connects artists and Boston Chinatown residents in the creation of public art.

“I make art that requires or precipitates interaction between people, through zines, mail art, drawings, animations, installations, and performances. I’m inspired by public artists who upend gallery norms to create interventions that involve people outside of a museum context. Relying on the language of childhood and toys, I aim to make work that is welcoming enough to be touched and played with. I use reclaimed or everyday materials like cardboard, magazines, and ubiquitous computer paper to make my art accessible and not too precious to manipulate. I hope people can feel part of a collective through expressing themselves Creating and communicating in the face of silencing and homogenizing is an act of resistance; an opportunity to express and exchange is a hope for connection. Following a history of ambiguous authorship in public art, I hope my practice empowers people to join in the making.”

——- Maria Fong