More than 130 faculty and staff at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design signed a letter this week urging the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston to reconsider recent layoffs, saying the cuts specifically target diverse programming.
The letter, dated Monday, detailed layoffs of curators of Islamic and Native American art, as well as other curators.
“At a moment marked by intensified state violence and the continued erasure of marginalized histories, cuts to curators and educators working with these collections contribute to a broader backlash against hard-won progress,’’ the staff said in the letter. “We urge the MFA to reflect seriously on what it means to honor the promise embedded in the slogan, ‘Here All Belong.’”
Details of the layoffs emerged following the museum’s announcement last week that it laid off 6.3 % of its workforce to reduce costs. Museum officials declined to comment about cuts to specific job cuts. In a statement, the museum said the layoffs of 33 active staff members “did not disproportionally affect any group of individuals based on their identity” and that “most of the eliminated positions came from the four largest curatorial departments.”
Mass Art staff haven’t been the only educators, artists and museum members critical of the recent news. Local arts community members put out calls to action through letter writing, a Change.org petition with over 1,700 signatures, in support of the affected employees. The Change.org letter also mentioned Nadirah Mansour, curator of Islamic art who led the museum’s Islamic department since 2022.
“We urge the MFA’s leadership and board to reconsider this decision and to reinstate Nadirah Mansour and her colleagues,’’ the letter said. “Upholding the museum’s stated values requires more than words. It requires protecting the people whose labor makes those values visible and real.”
Many learned of the cuts through a video that went viral by creator and museum-goer Ayia Elsadig, who called out the museum on her Instagram page @ayiacreates for laying off the Native American Art Curator, and the Islamic Arts Curator. She urged the public to write or call the MFA to tell them to reinstate the curators. The post made its way across Reddit, Facebook and Instagram.
In an interview, Elsadig told GBH News, “it seems like the MFA has no problem profiting off of and gaining good publicity off of cosplaying being inclusive. And using our identities for its own influence, for its own public perception.”
But she said the leadership of the MFA “doesn’t want to take on the responsibility of keeping the people who know those communities, who can steward those communities, who can foster those communities’ ideas and events in the MFA.”
Elsadig highlighted the timing, occurring just before the start of Black History Month and a couple of weeks from Ramadan.
Erik DeLuca, an associate professor who teaches a course at Mass Art, said his class regularly visits the Islamic department, and had planned to do so next week.
“These visits are integral and consistently rank among the most meaningful learning experiences for students early in their academic careers,” DeLuca said. “It is a rare and formative opportunity for students to engage directly with Mansour’s scholarship and teaching and to experience the MFA as an institution that centers globally attuned, internationally significant curatorial practice — within walking distance of our campus.”
Comments on the Change.org petition referred to the MFA’s decision as “deplorable,” “shameful,” and “tone deaf,” with many questioning the future of the museum and the priority of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
The museum said it is “carefully reviewing all community concerns and planning to respond to all inquiries.”
Arts educators, meanwhile, worry that the decision will affect class programming.
MacKay Lamberth, a 21-year old Mass Art fashion student, has attended the MFA regularly with her parents to talk about what she’s learned in her classes. But now, she’s not planning on going any time soon.
She most recalled her class engagement with the museum’s department of Fashion Art, whose curator, theo tyson, was appointed in 2021 but laid off last week.
Lamberth also remembered an exhibit on the rich Black history within jazz through the lens of Black people as performers, rather than attendees.
“I can say with confidence that there is not a white curator who could bring that lens and that level of rich experience and nuance to an exhibit like that,” she said.
Boston-based actor Josephine Elwood said the layoffs send out a message about its priorities.
“To me, this signals that... The work being done to preserve Middle Eastern art is not as important to the museum as the work being done to preserve European art.”
Parisa Zarringhalam, a museum member, said she is “greatly” disturbed by the cuts. She says she renewed her membership recently specifically because of how the museum made space for Islamic art.
“I have in the past felt like a nuanced and measured effort was made to preserve indigenous perspectives from all different places,” she said. “I am worried about how the museum will change.”
