María Magdalena Campos-Pons and Kamaal Malak (KaMag): I am Soil—My Tears Are Water

One-night-only performance: Friday, December 5, 2025, 6–7pm reception; 7pm performance. Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture (CADVC), UMBC.

The Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture at UMBC (CADVC) presents a special one-night-only performance with KaMag, the performance collaboration between artist María Magdalena Campos-Pons and musician Kamaal Malak.

CADVC debuts a public projection of  I am Soil—My Tears Are Water (2025), a single-channel video by María Magdalena Campos-Pons and Kamaal Malak that has been adapted for UMBC's Fine Arts Building amphitheater projection space. Conceived for large-scale projection and collective viewing, the work transforms the amphitheater into a reflective gathering space, bringing KaMag’s layered meditations on ancestry, land, and healing into public space. 

On December 5, as part of the Arts at UMBC “Arts+ Extravaganza,” KaMag will present Vignettes in 3 Sessions: An Immersive Ancestral Experience, a multisensory performance. KaMag invites visitors into a shared ritual environment—“a sacred space where ancestral energies transcend temporal boundaries, creating a transformative portal between past and present.” The performance unfolds as a multi-media, multi-sensory sanctuary combining spoken word, live music, sound design, and other sensorial experiences in an intimate format.

KaMag’s recent work has included major performances at institutions such as Tate Modern and the São Paulo Biennial, where Campos-Pons and Malak have developed a practice that bridges performance, sound, and moving image to explore Afro-diasporic spiritual, historical, and ecological inheritances.

This CADVC event and public art exhibition is presented as part of UMBC’s Arts+ initiative, a new campus-wide platform that celebrates and connects UMBC’s vibrant and multi-faceted arts scene through public-facing programming and interdisciplinary creative research. Arts+ positions UMBC as a welcoming arts destination for the region, bringing together students, faculty, visiting artists, and community audiences for exhibitions, performances, and other collaborative events.

María Magdalena Campos-Pons was born in in 1959 in the province of Matanzas, in the town of La Vega, Cuba. She grew up on a sugar plantation in a family with Nigerian, Hispanic and Chinese roots. Her Nigerian ancestors were brought to Cuba as slaves in the 19th century and passed on traditions, rituals, and beliefs. Her polyglot heritage profoundly influences Campos-Pons’ artistic practice, which combines diverse media including photography, performance, painting, sculpture, film, and video. Her work is autobiographical, investigating themes of history, memory, gender and religion and how they inform identity.

Kamaal Malak is a multifaceted musician, producer, academic, and researcher whose career spans diverse areas of the music industry. As a bassist and songwriter with the 2x Grammy-winning group Arrested Development, they significantly influenced conscious hip-hop in the early 1990s. His versatility as an artist is further exemplified by his collaborations with country music icon Shania Twain, bridging genres and expanding his musical reach. Beyond his performance career, Malak has made significant strides in music production, blending hip-hop, electronic, and world music influences.

Vignettes in 3 Sessions performers
Dell Marie Hamilton’s expansive multi-media practice includes curatorial projects as well as painting, drawing, sculpture, video, photography, and performance art, which has been featured at the MFA/Boston, the Clark Art Institute, and the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College. In 2019, she was a participating artist in the “Ríos Intermitentes” exhibition curated by Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons for the Havana Biennial. In 2021, she was also a recipient of the ICA/Boston’s James and Audrey Foster Prize. 

M’Balou Camara is the Program Coordinator for the Shriver Peaceworker Fellows Program at UMBC and a contracting grant writer with Benvenuti Arts. With a background spanning public policy, international development, and arts consulting, M’Balou is a DJ, storyteller, and artistic researcher whose practice weaves poetry, sound, time in nature, and community-building. Driven by a passion for exploring and documenting how art heals, M’Balou is preparing to launch The HeART Reflex, a podcast on the reflections and dreams of artists across the African diaspora.

For links to maps, directions, and parking information, visit here.

Our exhibitions and events are free and open to the public for full participation by all individuals regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or any other protected category under applicable federal law, state law, and the University’s nondiscrimination policy.

If you need specific accommodations at one of our events, whether in person or online, or to experience an exhibition, please contact CADVC at cadvc@umbc.edu or T +1 410 455 3188 as soon as possible.