Ariel Basson Freiberg
Director of Graduate Programming
In recent years, Ariel Basson-Freiberg has focused on her multicultural identity through research on Iraqi Jews, exploring her personal family history and the complex fissures her family has with their identity. The research started with her family’s Iraqi Jewish history by looking over old photos and ephemera, talking with relatives, and studying Judean Arabic. The artist’s maternal grandfather had a celebrated fabric shop in Baghdad’s central market, but due to religious persecution, he was forced to flee to Israel with his family in the 1950’s. Like many refugees, relocation required reinvention and he eventually established an apartment building construction business.
Read Catherine LeComte-Lecce’s interview with Ariel Basson-Freiberg
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Ariel Basson Freiberg was born in Texas of Iraqi/Israeli background, she has an MFA in painting from Boston University and a BA from Smith College. She has had multiple solo and group shows, including exhibitions at Faction Art Projects, Abigail Ogilvy Gallery, Howard Yezerski Gallery, Samson Projects, Dartmouth College, Tufts Art Gallery, Northeastern University, Danforth Museum, and the Art Center of Macedonia. In December 2017, she completed a large-scale installation commission, Ziv, for the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and the Jewish Arts Collaborative. In 2022 she exhibited for Love + Salt public art installation of cement paintings in the garden of the Brookline Arts Center.
