Collection Archives - McMaster Museum of Art

Beyond February: Collecting Care and Reimagining Black Histories

Posted on March 3, 2026March 3, 2026 by MMA Admin

The Black Madonnas of Perpetual Murmurs 19, 2023
collage, composition gold leaf, cutout on paper
Museum of Art Collection Trust, 2024

As this year’s Black History Month come to a close, the McMaster Museum of Art wishes to extend its sincere appreciation to the Equity and Inclusion Office for their leadership and dedication in creating space for reflection, celebration, and dialogue across the McMaster campus.

At the Museum, Black History Month serves as both a moment of acknowledgement and a reminder of an ongoing commitment. In alignment with the University’s 2020–2025 Strategic Plan, broadening our collection and presentation of works by artists from the world’s Black diasporas remains a key priority — not only during February, but as a sustained and evolving practice. We are committed to deepening engagement with Black communities on campus and throughout Hamilton, and to ensuring that Black artistic voices are meaningfully represented in our exhibitions, acquisitions, and programming.

As part of this commitment, the Museum recently acquired The Black Madonnas of Perpetual Murmurs by Erika DeFreitas. The work was featured in The Great Unseen, an exhibition highlighting rarely seen works from the collection by Black, Caribbean, and diasporic artists.

DeFreitas first began researching the Black Madonna during a 2017 residency at Alice Yard in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. There, she encountered a statue known as La Divina Pastora in a nearby town — an experience that sparked a deep, almost familial connection. She has described this process as forging a bond with a grandmother she never knew.

In this body of work, DeFreitas develops a model of care for the Black Madonna through collage. She “enrobes” the figure using magazine cutouts and photostat images of Black Madonnas from around the world, layering them with found images of contemporary Black women. These richly textured compositions reference stained-glass windows and open walkways common in West Indian architecture, creating spaces that feel both sacred and domestic.

Through this process, DeFreitas explores spiritualism, ancestry, and the unseen forces that speak to us from beyond. Rather than venerating the Black Madonna as a traditional devotional icon, she reframes the figure as a site of personal and ancestral memory — emphasizing lived experience, care, and intergenerational connection. *The Black Madonnas of Perpetual Murmurs* invites us to consider how spiritual legacies and Black histories can be reimagined, and how historical absences can speak just as powerfully as presence.

As we move forward, we encourage our community to think beyond a single month. What does it mean to build sustained relationships, to collect with intention, and to create platforms that reflect the fullness and complexity of Black histories and lived experiences — locally and globally? This work calls on us to remain accountable, responsive, and engaged as we continue shaping a museum that grows alongside the communities it serves.