Fifty years of the Fine Arts Center
For half a century, the UMass Fine Arts Center has been a cultural engine, activating conversations, uplifting diverse voices, and challenging the boundaries of what art can do. In a time marked by division and a deepening need for connection, we remain committed to what we’ve always believed: that the arts are not just entertainment, but an essential means of truth-telling, resistance, and healing.
As we enter the second half of our fiftieth anniversary season, we continue our story of innovation, inclusion, and inspiration. Explore how the Fine Arts Center has shaped culture and community over the past fifty years, and then join us this spring for a fresh lineup of performances and exhibitions that continue that tradition.
Sunny Jain's Wild Wild East
Founder and bandleader of the Brooklyn band Red Baraat, Sunny Jain brings his genre-mashing vision to Wild Wild East, a project inspired by his identity as a first-generation South Asian American and global musician. Tapping into Bollywood scores, Spaghetti Westerns, Indian folk traditions, jazz, and surf guitar, Jain reimagines the immigrant as a modern-day cowboy. Wild Wild East is a high energy soundscape that commands attention.
37th Annual Fine Arts Center Gala
Saturday, March 21
6–11:30 p.m.
Student Union Ballroom
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Lyrical Faith Named Inaugural Ignite Fellow at Mosesian Center for the Arts
Lyrical Faith, host of the Fine Arts Center’s Bright Moments Spoken Word Night, has been named the inaugural Ignite Fellow at the Mosesian Center for the Arts, a nonprofit interdisciplinary arts venue in Greater Boston.
The fellowship supports groundbreaking emerging artists by providing the time and space to create, experiment, and grow. As the inaugural fellow, Lyrical Faith will develop major new work, including a full-length manuscript, a spoken-word album, and live productions, while continuing to uplift diverse voices through her performance and curatorial work.
Wicked cOZplay: A Magical Night in the Emerald City
For our third annual cosplay celebration, we took the community down the yellow brick road for a cosplay and singalong screening of the movie Wicked. The Randolph W. Bromery Center transformed into the merry old land of Oz, complete with a yellow brick road, a hot air balloon, lots of bubbles, and many Elphabas, Glindas, Fiyeros, Ozians, and even a few flying monkeys.
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Fine Arts Center residency program sparks creative exchange
Four artists in residence spent a week on campus laying the foundation for spring exhibitions and performances that will reflect months of research and collaboration across campus.
Camille Turner confronts New England's ties to slavery
"I see my role almost as a public historian," says Turner, the University Museum of Contemporary Art's artist in residence. "My job is to make this history palpable, to make it alive, to make it relatable, and to invite people to sit with it, to process it, to reckon with it, and to imagine different futures."
Turner's new exhibition, Land of the Free, builds off her expansive body of research-driven work honoring the lives of enslaved Africans transported aboard slave ships. Through four cinematic works and an archival lab, Turner imagines new futures where legacies of oppression are confronted and dismantled.
Land of the Free will be on view at the museum February 6 through May 8. A reception will be held February 5.