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Assistant Professor, Honors College

Biography:

Johannes Barfield is an American visual and sound artist whose interdisciplinary practice spans installation, video, photography, extended reality, collage, and music. His work explores themes of childhood memories, joy, authenticity, extinction, and the music played at family cookouts. Born and raised in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Barfield earned his Master of Fine Arts from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU).

Now based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Barfield is an assistant professor in the Honors College at the University of New Mexico, where he teaches art and humanities. He is an award-winning artist whose work has been exhibited at renowned institutions, including the Greenville Museum of Art, where he presented MARAUDERS, a three-person show alongside Antoine Williams and Donté K. Hayes, exploring future artifacts, new mythologies, and cultural restitution. His recent exhibitions include The Sun Rises Spite of Everything at Davidson College, which featured artists such as Pope.L, Alexandra Bell, and Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, and Reckoning and Resilience at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, a group exhibition addressing themes of identity, loss, remembrance, trauma, and healing.

Barfield’s artistic achievements have earned him numerous awards, fellowships, and residencies, including the Mint Museum Atrium Health Award, the Toby Devan Lewis Fellowship, Back River Road Artist Residency, the Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts-Black Public Media Residency, the Merriweather District AIR Residency, the Fine Arts Work Center Visual Artist Fellowship, Lighthouse Works Fellowship, ACRE Residency, MASS MoCA Residency, and a VCU “10 Under 10” award recognizing distinguished alumni. His work has been exhibited in institutions such as the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Mint Museum, the CICA Museum, the PAAM Museum of Art, Van Every|Smith Galleries, The Anderson, 1708 Gallery, and Circle Contemporary, among others.

Barfield is currently developing a speculative science-fiction narrative centered on Pilot Coaltrain, a former archaeologist tasked with returning looted artifacts in a distant future shaped by a dying sun and portal transportation technology.

Why Africana Studies?

I am affiliated with Africana Studies because my creative practice deeply engages with the African Diaspora and the cultural innovations of people of African descent. Born in the Hip Hop generation, I explore its foundations and contemporary evolution, teaching courses like Legacy of Hip Hop and Sonic Painting. These classes examine the physical, emotional, and cultural impact of music, emphasizing Black American musical genres such as Spirituals, Blues, Jazz, Hip Hop, and Techno. These genres emerged as extraordinary acts of creativity during a state of freefall as Black people navigated the constraints and upheaval of the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

A guiding principle in my work is Sankofa, an Akan concept that emphasizes the importance of looking to the past to retrieve knowledge, wisdom, and cultural memory as a way to move forward with purpose. Through soundscapes and artistic exploration, I address the need for restitution, amplifying the voices, resilience, and creativity of Black communities. Africana Studies provides an essential framework to explore these intersections of art, history, and identity, creating pathways to reclaim and celebrate culture.