Join us for a live conversation with artists Marilyn Montufar and Michelle Kumata as they share personal and relevant stories of migration, identity, and race, centered around their art featured in the group exhibition Breathe. The conversation will be moderated by BIMA Associate Curator, Amy Sawyer. Bring your questions, share your reflections, and erase some of the distance in listening.

Free, registration is required.

About Michelle Kumata

Michelle Kumata is a 3.5 generation Japanese American artist and Seattle native with a BFA in Illustration from The School of Visual Arts in New York, NY. She worked as a graphic artist at The Seattle Times for over a decade and then served as Exhibit Director at Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience for 12 years.

Michelle is influenced by heritage, identity and legacy. She is currently exploring the Japanese diaspora in the U.S. and Brazil through oral histories and visual storytelling. These stories are powerful tools that parallel current issues of immigration, racism and culture and challenge my growth as an artist.

About Marilyn Montufar

Marilyn Montufar is a fine art photographer, educator, and activist with ten years of research, production, teaching, and exhibition experience locally, nationally, and internationally. Current work amplifies stories about underrepresented communities through the arts – youth, migrants, women, BIPOC, LGBTQ+ communities.

She received a BFA in photography from the School of Visual Arts, New York, in 2009. Her work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Centro de Investigaciones Artísticas Gerónimo Baqueiro Fóster, Mérida, Mexico (2019), Gallery 4Culture, Seattle (2018), among others, and has been included in numerous group exhibitions since 2006. In fall 2020, her photograph Ronnie and Cleveland (2006), inaugurated the Frye Art Museum’s Boren Baner Series at a monumental scale in the form of a 16 x 20 ft. vinyl banner.

Montufar was a finalist for the 2020 Betty Bowen Award and Neddy at Cornish Award. She has been an artist in residence at Centrum, Port Townsend, Washington; the Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, Vermont; and Primal Studio, Mexico City, where she created the photography youth project Beyond Borders/ Más allá de las fronteras –a visual collaboration and international exchange program between Mexico and the United States. The project was featured at the Northern Vermont University’s Gallery, the Julian Scott Memorial Gallery, FotoMéxico Festival, and the Tamayo Art Museum’s Education Center in Mexico City in 2019. Montufar is a Mexican American dual citizen and resides in Seattle.