SMFA at 150: Proof of Context in the 21st Century

SMFA at 150: Proof of Context in the 21st Century continues a year of recognizing the School of the Museum of Fine Art (SMFA) at Tufts University’s 150th anniversary, building upon the Fall 2026 exhibition SMFA at 150: Looking Back.

Centering recent alumni artists of the BFA and MFA programs, Creighton Baxter (BFA ’13), Miguel Caba (BFA ‘25), Furen Dai (MFA ’16), Cathy Lu (BFA, ‘07), Sara Magenheimer (BFA/ BA, ‘04) with Michael Bell-Smith, Courtney McClellan (MFA, ‘13), Antonia Kuo (BFA, ’09), Dawit L. Petros (MFA, ‘07), and Daniela Rivera (MFA, ‘06), Proof of Context upends the colloquialism “proof of concept.” Originally intended to circulate technological ideas in the “real world,” the phrase aims to evidence success. Resisting this endpoint towards necessary evidentiary support and success, participating artists relish, critique, and speculate. Replacing the abstraction of “concept” with “context,” works across media ranging from photography, drawing, installation, sculpture, new media, painting, print, ceramics, artist books, and sound wonder about the power of place, home, and site. Imitations, models, and duplicates challenge pre-conceived categories concerning how context shapes knowledge production. Works in Proof of Context gesture towards the processual nature of the interdisciplinary pedagogy at the SMFA at Tufts since its founding in 1876 through 2027.

The exhibition draws upon the works of artists who matriculated through the BFA and MFA programs in the twenty-first century, carrying on the legacies of the school and transforming them anew. Proof of Context is organized by TUAG Interim Co-Director and Chief Curator Laurel V. McLaughlin with research assistance from TUAG interns Avery Davis (BFA ’26), Jordan Hobson (MFA ‘27), Rylan Nguyen (BFA ’26), and Curatorial Fellow Ayla Tanurhan (MA ’27) and features a new public billboard commission, You Missed & Again Again Again by exhibiting artist Creighton Baxter, on the exterior wall of the 230 Fenway