"I AM" Reception & Artist Talk

Miles Perry is a Boston-based visual artist, photographer, and creative director whose multidisciplinary practice spans painting, photography, film, and community-centered storytelling. A featured artist for Mayor Michelle Wu's inaugural celebration, he has collaborated with organizations and communities across Boston to create work that celebrates representation, culture, and place.

Sarah Lewis is currently the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Humanities and Associate Professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University and the founder of Vision & Justice. She has authored and edited over 60 publications including The Unseen Truth, winner of the American Book Award; the bestseller, The Rise; the award-winning volumes, Carrie Mae Weems and “Vision & Justice”; as well as Coreen Simpson and Race Stories. Lewis was named to the 2026 TIME List, The Closers, in recognition of her work toward greater equality in the United States. She has organized landmark convenings, founded a Vision & Justice Book Series, and curated exhibitions, including If Emmett Till Lived: Freedom on American Ground, opening at the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago in September 2026. Her writing has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Artforum, and The New York Review of Books, and her work has been the subject of profiles from Vogue to The Boston Globe to The New York Times. Lewis is the recipient of an honorary degree from Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts, and Pratt Institute, along with the Walter Channing Cabot Fellowship at Harvard University, the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship, the Arthur Danto/ASA Prize from the American Philosophical Association, the Freedom Scholar Award from the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, and the Infinity Award for Critical Writing and Research from the International Center of Photography.

 

Dart Adams is a native Bostonian journalist, historian, lecturer, researcher, and author. His work has appeared in various online and print publications including Complex, NPR, Mass Appeal, Rock The Bells, Okayplayer, ESPN's Andscape, WBUR's Cognoscenti, The Emancipator, The Bay State Banner, Boston Globe, Boston Globe Magazine, and Boston Magazine. Dart's books include "Instead We Became Evil: A True Story Of Survival & Perseverance" and the upcoming "On Track: The Kronicles Of DJ Amir". Dart Adams is also chair of the Historic Sites Subcommitee for Embrace Boston's Everyone 250 initiative.

Sophia Dubuisson known as Phia is a self-taught, mixed-media Haitian American artist based in Boston whose practice is deeply rooted in personal experience, cultural heritage, identity, and emotional expression. Having developed her artistic practice organically over the years, Phia approaches each piece as an opportunity to explore memories, emotions, and the stories that shape how people understand themselves and the world around them.