Baltimore, MD, USA
Ada Pinkston

Ada Pinkston is an artist, educator, and cultural organizer living and working in Baltimore, MD, where she is lecturer in Art Education at Towson University. Her work explores the intersection of imagined histories and sociopolitical realities on our bodies using performance, digital media, and mixed-media sculptures and installations. Her project, Landmarked, explores new ways of activating the empty spaces left by the 48 Confederate monuments that have been removed. Her most recent collaborative project includes founding the LabBodies Performance Art Laboratory in Baltimore, Maryland.
 
 
Over the years, Pinkston's work has been featured at a variety of spaces including but not limited to The Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building, The Walters Art Museum, The Peale Museum, P.S.1, The New Museum, and Light City Baltimore. She has also performed on the streets and public gardens of Berlin, Orlando, Baltimore, and Porto, Portugal to name a few. In 2019, she was short listed on the Creative Capital On Our Radar List of noteworthy artist projects. She is a Baker Artist award semifinalist (2016), a recipient of an Andy Warhol Foundation Grit Fund Grant in Visual Arts, administered by The Contemporary (2017); a Robert W. Deutsch Foundation Ruby’s Project Grant in Visual Arts in (2017), and a fellow at Halcyon Arts Lab (2018-2019). She has given lectures at numerous venues including the National Gallery of Art, UCLA, and The French Embassy to name a few.

Featured Work

Landmarked is a multi-site, multi-iterative, multi-media/genre-blurring artwork series that is based on participatory, library and ancestral research. Recent iterations of the project include More than a Number... (A requiem to the GU 272) and AfterLives After Slavery (A tribute to Marie Joseph).

The project considers how we reframe public space to be more equitable and inclusive of all histories. Landmarked includes workshops, the creation of site-specific installations, and public performances. The project centers civic engagement, the voices of people of color, and historical memories that are often overlooked by dominant cultural narratives found in public school textbooks