Frost Science Goes Beyond the Algorithm with MyFi Studio

MyFi Studio will present four performances throughout Frost Science Museum’s nightLAB on Thursday, July 17, utilizing the 67-foot dome in its Planetarium.Other activities are all part of the adults-only night at the museum showcasing its exhibit “AI: More Than Human.”  (Photo Courtesy of Frost Science)

Technology influences many aspects of life. It also plays a part in the creation of art. For the artist duo MyFi Studio, one without the other does not exist. The pair will debut their latest tech-inspired performance piece at Frost Science Museum’s adult-only night, nightLAB, on Thursday, July 17.

“We build instruments and computer systems for creating digital art and music in real time,” says Aimee Rubensteen, one half of MyFi Studio. “Our performance at the Frost will be showcasing how we create video art, how we create electronic music instruments, and how we use them live.”

MyFi Studio was founded in 2021 by real life partners Rubensteen and Josh Eisenberg. The pair first met in 2017 and were married in 2022. Much of their relationship was built on their shared love of music and the arts — and technology.

“A big part of our relationship has always been talking about art and talking about technology… so we started MyFi to make the art we’ve always wanted to make,” says Eisenberg.

The duo specializes in digital art and creating their own electronic instruments. Eisenberg has a background in coding and a Ph.D. in computer engineering from Florida International University, so he applies his skills to create magic with Rubensteen.

Their instruments are often interactive in nature and inviting for the public to participate. In 2024, The Bass Museum of Art commissioned a piece by the duo titled “in real time” that featured a collection of 454 electronic instruments. The piece is available online for the community to interact with and play.

The excitement behind the instruments they create comes from seeing a computer more like a toy than a machine. Eisenberg compares the digital instruments he builds to more tangible pieces like guitars or trumpets. “With a cello, you touch it and the way it sounds depends on how you touch it. And (the) same with these instruments. The way they sound depends on how you actually play them and touch them, not just how you click a button in a program.”

MyFi Studio’s latest performance piece for nightLAB, “Look Over Here,” was heavily inspired by the night’s theme: “Beyond the Algorithm.” It is both a nod to the current Artificial Intelligence (AI) exhibit at the museum as well as an homage to the planetarium itself where the performance will take place.

“The piece is definitely a reference to being in the planetarium, but it’s also a reference to how people learn and how computers learn. They learn by example,” says Eisenberg.

The idea behind the performance is almost as if the planetarium and MyFi Studio’s computer are having a conversation and the audience is witnessing the dialogue. There will be four performances throughout the night (7:45 p.m., 8:30 p.m., 9:15 p.m., and 10 p.m.), each unique in what theme the artists will be exploring.

“Our live performances are also improvisational,” says Rubensteen. “So while there are pieces that are rehearsed or scripted, it’s also an improvisational performance, so they’ll all be different, which will be a lot of fun.”

The performance will feature custom code created by the artists, which will allow them to “write and draw and paint around the dome like an electronic paint brush,” explains Rubensteen.

“Look Over Here” by MyFi Studio is part of a packed program for the Frost’s nightLAB event. In addition to the four 25-minute performances, the evening will feature events such as a talk from an AI expert, an interactive experience led by FilmGate Miami, a demonstration by Florida International University’s Robotics Lab, and various showcases led by Miami Dade College.

“NightLAB is a really unique event,” says Analisa Duran, Ph.D., Frost Science’s Knight Sr. Director of Science Education. “Through the programs that we design and the partners that we choose to engage with, we are thinking specifically about adults. We’re reflecting on ourselves as adults in the Miami community and what we would like to see and also learn more about when it comes to science.”

Duran is particularly excited for the Thesis Bingo portion of the night. She explains, “Ph.D. Students are going to give a 2 to 3 minute thesis and the audience will get a Bingo card with jargon words that they may say, and if they say one of the words, you mark it on your card and you can get extra points for trying to define whatever word that they’re that they’re using.”

Since the evening’s theme is all about technology, Duran encourages guests to spend time experiencing the museum’s latest exhibit, “AI: More Than Human.”

“It challenges a lot of what people may already be thinking about AI,” she says. “It gives a new and fresh perspective to AI and tells a unique story. When you go through the exhibit, you start off learning about the history of AI, but through a very philosophical and religious lens… And then we go into what we’re thinking about AI today.”

WHAT: MyFi Studio at “nightLAB: Beyond the Algorithm”

WHERE: Frost Science Museum, 1101 Biscayne Blvd., Miami

WHEN: 7 p.m., Thursday, July 17

COST: $29.95 online, $34.99 at the door includes museum admission and all events.

INFORMATION: (305) 434-9600 or frostscience.org.

 ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.

Addonis Parker brings faith, fatherhood and resilience to Opa-locka’s ARC

 

Addonis Parker’s “Elevation” is a colorful cacophony of disjointed images, a pictorial diary, a journey back in time. In it there is a man who walks with a sense of pride and purpose.  Smartly dressed, he carries a bookbag over both shoulders and wears a tie kissed by a sun setting in the sky.

It’s obvious that this man is going places.

“I took maybe 10 years out of my life, and I put it in a painting,” says Parker, a Miami muralist.

“Elevation”  is replete with a mélange of symbols.

Pick one and you will find yourself tumbling down a rabbit hole of memories and meaning.

Let’s start with the man’s timepiece.

“If you look at it and zoom in on his watch you see it’s almost 12 o’clock,” points out Parker.

“I’m not saying it’s the end of time, but the Bible says it’s the beginning of sorrow.”

The backpack, he says, holds a set of blueprints, the symbolical plans for his life.

“And if you see the part of his leg; His leg is concrete and it’s heavy, but he’s ripping it off the building. That’s an old building. He’s leaving the old behind and going to the new.”

The piece is also a spiritual testimony.

“He’s holding a brick in his hand. if you look at it and zoom in to the brick, it has cracks and stuff. But if you zoom all the way in, you see the cracks are spelling out J- E-S-U-S.”

Hallelujah.

“Elevation” he says is one of his favorites pieces and part of the exhibit “Still We Rise: The Art of Addonis Parker” at The ARC in Opa-locka.

What began as an art project that Parker steered ten years ago, has blossomed into a longstanding partnership, where Parker has now spent a decade as OneUnited Bank’s artist in residence, a unique collaboration.

In 2015 the bank unveiled “Thunder & Enlightening,” a 550-square foot mural at its Miami branch.

(RELATED: ARTSPEAK: The Portraits of Addonis Parker)

The piece was the result of the bank’s OneUnited Mural Project which paired Parker with 21 students in a four-month apprenticeship where they not only received his guidance on the research and development of the piece, but also received a $250 stipend, a OneUnited Bank account and a financial literacy course.

“His whole involvement with our community outreach was so successful that we thought about what else could we do with Addonis?,” says Teri Williams, president and chief operating officer of OneUnited Bank, America’s largest Black owned bank.

When they realized that they could revamp some extra space at its Miami branch, the perfect opportunity presented itself. The second floor, which had been vacant for 20 years, was then transformed into an art creative space and studio. Having art on demand was something that OneUnited Bank was willing to explore and the possibilities were endless. This included Parker’s pieces being featured on a series of debit cards for the bank.

“The reality is that most businesses use art to communicate messages,” says Williams.

“And really, it sort of grew organically from there where we finally came to the conclusion that we really wanted to create this artist in residence program and have him on site to really instill some of the messages of his work.”

Some of those themes are prominently displayed throughout the exhibit. This includes the message of unity and hope.

“I have colors that normally won’t go together, they clash, but the way I put them together, that’s actually a subliminal message to where, how humanity can be mixed and how different cultures can come together and make a masterpiece,” explains Parker.

Another message that he wants to explore is the importance of men playing an active role in the lives of their children. There are few things the passionate and proud father of five can think of that are more important.

“Fatherhood is important to me because it transcends to other things, other aspects of your life, and  it’s a responsibility that I think every man should carry,” says Parker.

And as he touches on different themes, he hopes that others will take the opportunity to stop by and take a look at the exhibit.

“My message is true, and it’s different, but it’s real, because it relates to everybody in my environment, it relates to people that are not in my environment, and it relates to different cultures too, because everybody likes good art.”

WHAT: “Still We Rise: The Art of Addonis Parker”

WHERE: The ARC, 675 Ali Baba Ave., Opa-locka

WHEN: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday to Thursday; 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Fridays through Saturday, Aug. 30.

COST: Free

INFORMATION: addonisparker.com and tennorthgroup.com

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com

Shaped by Community: 75 Years of the Ceramic League of Miami

Richard Notkin, shown leading a workshop at the Ceramic League of Miami, is the curator for the organization’s 75th anniversary exhibition. An exhibition featuring 32 artisans is at the Fundación Pablo Atchugarry gallery. (Photo courtesy of Ceramic League of Miami)

Although often relegated to the margins of art history, ceramics have long stood as an aesthetic and cultural expression of depth and resonance. From Grayson Perry’s narrative sculptures and Beate Kuhn’s experimental forms to Julian Schnabel’s textured paintings on shattered ceramic fragments, the medium has outgrown its utilitarian roots to claim its place as a powerful expressive language. In Latin America, artists such as Amelia Peláez, Gustavo Vélez, and Geles Cabrera have shown how ceramics can serve as a vehicle for identity, modernity, and cultural resistance.

That transformative potential has found fertile ground in Miami’s visual arts, where the Ceramic League of Miami has spent 75 years cultivating ceramics as a living, accessible, and deeply community-rooted art form.

Founded in 1950 by a group of women who gathered in homes and garages to work with clay, the League has evolved into a singular institution in South Florida. Its current 5,000-square-foot facility in the Falls Warehouse district for the past 50 years —complete with workshops and a spacious backyard—is equipped with gas, electric, soda, and RAKU kilns, along with dedicated areas for traditional techniques like pit firing.

“What sets us apart is the wide range of technical possibilities we offer,” says James Herring, the League’s president. “We even have a glaze lab where members can mix their own formulas—something you usually only find in university settings. It turns the space into a true creative laboratory.”

But beyond the tools and infrastructure, Herring emphasizes that the League’s true engine has always been its people. “The secret to our longevity is the community that keeps this place alive. Generations, cultures, and creative paths intersect here. That human richness becomes a network of friendship, collaboration, and learning—passed from one maker to another like a living tradition.”

The intergenerational exchange is especially meaningful for Hanna Banciella, a 26-year-old artist and one of the League’s youngest members. “After college, it was hard to find a space with the resources and access I had in school,” she says. “The League gave me exactly that—and more. It wasn’t intimidating; it was welcoming.”

Banciella, who studied drawing and painting at the University of Florida with a focus on ceramics, sees her practice as interdisciplinary. “Ceramics is a supplementary material in my work, but it adds another layer of depth. It connects me physically to the process,” she explains. “I don’t have my own kiln or equipment yet, so being here is a gift. It’s affordable, fully equipped, and offers a sense of community you just can’t replicate on your own.”

That diversity of voices and experiences is reflected in the League’s artistic direction. Adler Guerrier, a visual artist and current chair of the exhibitions committee, underscores how ceramics has outgrown the hierarchical lens that long placed it beneath painting or sculpture.

“In 2025, ceramics is one of the most expressive forms in contemporary art. There’s no longer a need to justify whether it’s art or craft. Just look at how many museums and galleries now include ceramics in their permanent collections,” he says. For Guerrier, much like photography or printmaking once did, ceramics had to fight for its place, “but today, its value is undeniable.”

The League’s 75th anniversary is being celebrated with an exhibition at the Fundación Pablo Atchugarry in Little Haiti, featuring 32 local artists and showcasing the vitality of ceramic practice in South Florida. Participating artists include Banciella, Barbara Bernstein, Debra Burch, Celine De Paz, Lexi Dreybus, Nan Ernst, Noah Farid, Zanze Fowler, Stacey Frisch, James Herring, Carin Ingalsbe, Lili Kamely, Sepideh Kalani, Giselle Kovac, Chris Labbe, Edith Landowne, Julia Levay, Marcia Manconi, Pamela Manresa, Gus Pages, Polo Ramirez, Marianne Russell, Linda Sands, Tammy Shapiro, Ryan Shedd, Diane Slezak, Donna Sperow, Maite Oca, Katherine Palacios, Fredric Witkin, Catherine Yang, and Sabine Zerarka. 

The exhibition was curated by Richard Notkin, who lives and works in the state of Washington. Notkin, a leading figure in American contemporary ceramics known for his intricately crafted works that explore political, social, and environmental themes, had come to Miami in February to lead a workshop and was invited to curate the exhibition.

Guerrier, who joined the League five years ago, has also integrated ceramics into his own practice. “I’ve taken classes and made pieces that became part of my photography and drawings,” he says. “When you’re that close to a process from start to finish, it’s hard not to participate. It’s fascinating.”

For Banciella, learning directly from more experienced members has been equally rewarding. “You’re surrounded by people who’ve been working with clay for decades—some professionally, others as a passion—and everyone is generous with their knowledge,” she says. “Techniques, materials, ideas… it’s all shared. That kind of exchange has really shaped the way I work and how I see ceramics.”

Although the League primarily functions as a working studio and educational space, it lacks a dedicated exhibition gallery. This allows them to cultivate partnerships with institutions across the region to present the work of its members. “We collaborate with universities, museums, and commercial galleries,” says Guerrier. “In the past, we’ve partnered with the Lowe Art Museum, the Museum of the Americas, and this year, the Fundación Pablo Atchugarry. These alliances allow us to show our work in professionally curated spaces that already draw a public.”

That outreach will continue in the coming months. Guerrier says that in September, a group show at Bernice Steinbaum Gallery will feature League members and maybe a few invited artists. “Bernice herself will take part in the selection process,” he says.

Such partnerships help amplify the League’s mission. “We make beautiful objects, and exhibition spaces know how to present them. Together, we make sure ceramic art reaches farther.”

Staying true to its educational roots, the League also maintains a robust artist residency program. “We want the next generation to see ceramics as an expressive language they can grow with,” adds Herring.

Banciella echoes that vision.

“My dream is to one day have my own studio and kiln. But until then, the League makes it possible to keep working and evolving. It’s a bridge between school and professional practice—a space that lets you grow.”

WHAT: “75 Years of Shaping Community Through Clay: Ceramic League of Miami 75th Anniversary Members’ Exhibition”

WHERE: Fundación Pablo Atchugarry, 5520 NE 4th Ave., Miami

WHEN: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday. Through Friday, Aug. 30

COST: Free

INFO: 305-639-8247 or www.ceramicleaguemiami.org/

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.

At the Wolfsonian-FIU, All the World’s A Fair

A postcard from Expo67, Montréal, Canada, part of “World’s Fair: Visions of Tomorrow” at the Wolfsonian-FIU in Miami Beach. (Photo courtesy The Wolfsonian–FIU, The Mitchell Wolfson, Jr. Collection)

Halfway across the world in Japan as thousands of visitors are diving into the future at Expo 2025, a Miami Beach museum is giving locals a view into the World’s Fairs of the past.

“World’s Fairs: Visions of Tomorrow” at the Wolfsonian-FIU explores the once-popular International Exposition event format, using the museum’s extensive collection of design-related objects to illustrate World’s Fair events, which served as celebrations of scientific and technological progress.

“In the past, it was the only big way to see new technologies or representations of nations through their pavilions,” says Silvia Barisione, chief curator at the Wolfsonian.

The exhibition arrives a few months after Expo 2025 officially opened on April 13 in Osaka, Japan’s third most populous city and a previous World’s Fair host. Neither the current fair nor the previous 1970 edition in the city, which was the first official expo to be hosted in Asia and held the record for most-attended until Shanghai in 2010, are mentioned due to the museum not holding any of the collateral tied to the events in its current collection. Instead, the focus is on the late 19th and early 20th century, the era when World’s Fairs were at their height.

Eight expos are covered that illustrate the format’s rise, heyday, and decline, from the spectacular Paris Exposition of 1889 through the futuristic New York fairs of 1939 and 1964 to the environmentally focused Expo ‘74 in Spokane, Washington. They show the transformation of the concept across time: Originally conceived of in the 19th century as soft-power competitions between imperial powers, they evolved into idealistic displays of technological progress and eventually into a way for developing nations to put themselves on the map.

“We have a very comprehensive collection of World’s Fair materials,” says Frank Luca, chief librarian at the Wolfsonian. “So space was the biggest consideration of what we couldn’t include, but in terms of what we wanted to include, it was those kinds of iconic structures that really lend themselves to this idea of a utopian future.”

Objects from various fairs display the major structures and innovations of each event. A bronze statue from the Paris Exposition shows builders crafting the Eiffel Tower, which was built as a temporary structure for the fair. The first consumer television set, an RCA Victor TRK 12 the size of a washing machine, displayed at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, shows the role of Expos in debuting new technology.

Posters, brochures, and other archival materials speak to the ways World’s Fairs were used as showcases for modern design. A book from the 1929 Barcelona International Exhibition shows the German Pavilion, a landmark of the International Style designed by legendary Modernist architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Posters from the Chicago World’s Fair of 1933, meanwhile, focus on the emerging Art Deco style that would become extremely popular in Miami Beach the following decade. According to Luca, the fairs of this era were meant to give people hope in dark times.

“During the Great Depression, you had more American World’s Fairs than in any other decade,” he says. “In troubled times, you need to boost people’s morale. You need to get architects, engineers, construction workers working to build all these structures, and people to man the buildings and these rides once they are built. This was considered a great way to boost your economy and attract domestic and international tourism. It was considered a win-win, economically and psychologically for people who are extremely stressed.”

The exhibition also shows how World’s Fairs have at times given way to more overt political expression. Guidebooks from the 1958 Brussels Expo feature contrasting visions of the future during the Cold War: A consumerist utopia at the U.S. pavilion next to the technological prowess of the Soviet Union. The 1939 section displays a maquette for “The Threatening Shadow,” a proposed sunshade sculpture modeled after a line of soldiers giving the Nazi salute. Conceived as a cri de coeur against the then-rising wave of fascism sweeping across Europe, it was rejected by the organizers and never built.

Although most World’s Fair pavilions are torn down after the end of each exhibition, remnants of various World Expos still exist in cities all over the world. The Eiffel Tower was considered by artists and intellectuals “a monstrosity at the time,” says Barisione, but soon became a timeless and beloved icon of its city. The same is true of the Atomium in Brussels, the Seattle Space Needle, and Habitat ‘67 in Montreal. Parks such as Flushing Meadows in Queens, New York and Chicago’s Midway are former Expo sites.

Yet despite this legacy, World’s Fairs basically disappeared from North America in the 1980s. Geopolitical events such as the oil crisis of 1973 and the environmentalist movement caused the public to call the costly events into question, while theme parks such as Disney’s Epcot and sporting events like the Olympic Games began to emerge as alternatives. As a result, Barisione says, “people don’t know what a World’s Fair is.”

Yet the curators hope that by educating the public about these utopian events, they can address the similar political issues of our own time.

“We also want to remember the historical context,” says Luca, “because very often these fairs are done in troubled times, as a means of saying, ‘oh, I know things aren’t great right now, but things will be better.’”

WHAT: “World’s Fairs: Visions of Tomorrow”

 WHERE: The Wolfsonian-FIU, 1001 Washington Ave., Miami Beach

 WHEN: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday. Open until 9 p.m. on Friday. Through Feb. 22, 2026.

 COST: $12 for adults; $8 for seniors, students with ID, and children ages six to 18; free for members, Florida residents, visitors with disabilities and accompanying caregivers, children under 6, Florida university system students and staff, and active U.S. military and veterans with ID

 INFORMATION: 305-531-1001 or wolfsonian.org

 ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music, and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com

 

A Mystical Painter Headlines MoCA North Miami’s Spring Season

“Philip Smith: Magnetic Fields” is one of two solo exhibitions now on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, through Sunday, Oct. 5. (Photo by Zachary Balbar, courtesy MOCA North Miami)

There’s plenty going on in the mind of Philip Smith, and it shows in his art. The Miami-born painter’s canvases are full of esoteric symbols and mystical imagery gleaned from years of studying ancient cultures, world religions, and the work of historical magicians. Spirals, DNA strands, minerals, magic circles, foliage, human hands – all coexist in a ghostly mélange of images and ideograms.

“These images are meant to basically provoke your imagination,” says Smith, who is currently the subject of a career-spanning retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, which opened Wednesday, April 30 and is on view through Sunday, Oct. 5.

“The idea of looking at my paintings is a bit akin to sitting in a planetarium, where you’re looking up at the stars and they project all these patterns. And you’re told to see those patterns, that this is the Milky Way, but then your mind wanders and you start to see other things. And that’s the idea with my work, really. It’s a portal for the imagination.”

Smith’s encounters with the supernatural began during his childhood in Miami. His father Lew Smith, who had been an interior decorator for famous and powerful people such as Walt Disney and Cuban president Carlos Prio Socarras, one day discovered he could speak to the dead and heal the sick. He became a faith healer, and the difficulties this placed on then-teenage Philip, who eventually wrote about the experience in his memoir “Walking Through Walls,” put him on his own spiritual quest. He tried drugs. He joined, and later left, the Church of Scientology. And finally, he moved to New York to become an artist, and from there he developed the image-dense visual language in his paintings.

“As a kid, I wanted to be an archeologist, so I was looking at, obviously, Sumerian and Egyptian and Indian temples,” he says. “I wanted to sort of create a pictographic language, also a slightly cinematic language. Because I think we respond to that experientially and also cerebrally more than words,” he says.

Smith explains that words have to be learned, whereas images are immediate.

“When you speak to mediums or psychics, they get their information visually. It’s imprinted. They see things as they’re talking to you. And so all those components go into making up this visual language,” he says.

Smith’s work managed to get noticed by the critic Douglas Crimp, who put him in a soon-to-be-influential show at Artists Space in downtown Manhattan called “Pictures.” It included several artists, including Robert Longo and Sherrie Levine, who would later be part of the so-called “the Pictures Generation,” a group of artists who were deeply influenced by the culture of mass media that was present at the time. Smith describes the art scene of that time as vastly different from today’s more professionalized art ecosystem, full of passionate people that did what they did not for money, but because they felt a calling.

“I didn’t understand what kids learn with their MFA today, how to network, how to write emails, how to get curators into your studio. I thought my job was just to make art, and the art world was very small and very personal. You kind of met everybody.”

He says he was friendly with the likes of Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jasper Johns.

“(Warhol) would call me every Saturday at the studio and chat. I interviewed Jasper Johns for Interview (magazine), and I would walk over to Bob Rauschenberg’s house at four o’clock in the morning and sit there and drink with him. It was a very different world. And it was more a world where you kind of made it up as you went along. None of us knew what we were doing, but we all knew we were doing something different.”

Still, he always wanted to come back to Miami, the place he considers his true home. After nearly three decades in New York, in 2019, he returned to South Florida and has staged several shows since then, mostly with the Little River-based gallery PRIMARY. The MoCA show, his first solo museum exhibition in Miami for several decades and one that incorporates work from “Pictures” to now, is something of a culmination for him.

“I’ve always wanted to do a major show in Miami, because it’s the city that I really love,” he says. “I had to leave Miami as a young artist, because there was no opportunity. There were no real museums, no galleries, no collectors. There was nothing here. So that’s why I went to New York.”

Smith mentions the progression of Miami’s art museums.

“Whether it’s the Rubell Museum, or Marty Margulies, or Art Basel – it’s an extraordinary transformation that I don’t know, that people appreciate, how it went from the desert to Tribeca in a generation or two.”

For the artist, the retrospective at MoCA is important on many levels.

“It’s a very meaningful show to me, because I feel it’s giving back to Miami as a Miami person, and I’m not coming in as a New Yorker saying ‘see how great I am.’ I’m coming in and saying, ‘I want to share with you what my life’s been about.’”

Smith’s status as a Miami-born artist who spent much of his career in New York complements that of MoCA’s other spring show, a New York-born artist who spent much of her life in South Florida. Vickie Pierre worked for Miami art institutions, including at the former Miami Art Museum (now PAMM) and as registrar at MoCA NoMi. But alongside that career, she also made art herself, and now her work is on view in the show “The Maiden is the Warrior.”

The exhibition zeros in on the artist’s “Poupées in the Bush” series, featuring amorphous black blobs with clearly defined feminine features, somewhere between figures and abstract forms. Some have fingers, horns, and other protrusions appended to their bodies. Others wear rings or are surrounded by floral assemblages. Reflecting the duality of womanhood as in the title of the show, the Poupées are meant to have a bit of softness as well as ferocity, according to curator Adeze Wilford.

“The thrust of our show is really about the duality of their forms. Like they can equally be these, very soft, reclining figures, kind of droopy and globular but also very, almost Rubenesque in how they’re conceived of. But then there are some that have these very fierce bearings,” says Wilford.

Though the two shows are quite distinct, Wilford, who is curating her final show for MoCA after moving to the Memphis Art Museum in January, hopes viewers will be able to envelop themselves in each.

“The way that I conceive of solo presentations is really that the artists are inviting you into their world, into how their brain is working, and so they’re very different people, and we can see how things are unfolding for them both.”

WHAT: “Philip Smith: Magnetic Fields” and “Vickie Pierre: The Maiden is the Warrior”

WHERE: Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, 770 NE 125th St., North Miami

WHEN: Noon to 7 p.m. Wednesday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday through Sunday. Through Sunday, Oct. 5.

COST: $10 for general admission; $5 for seniors, students with ID, ages 12 to 17, and disabled visitors; free for museum members, children under 12 years old, North Miami residents and city employees, veterans, and caregivers of disabled visitors. 

INFORMATION: 305-893-6211 and  mocanomi.org

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music, and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com

 

 

A Bowie-Themed Art Installation at Locust Projects is About More than Music

“Blackstar 16/25/60” is the third in a trilogy of art installations by Tomas Vu inspired by David Bowie currently on exhibition at Locust Projects in Little River through Saturday, July 19. (Photo by Pedro Wazzan, courtesy of Locust Projects)

Few artists can claim as much cultural influence as David Bowie.

The legendary rock star constantly reinvented himself across a career that spanned decades and personas. He was Ziggy Stardust, the Martian that gave glam rock to the world with songs like “Starman” and “Moonage Daydream.” Then he became the Thin White Duke and redefined blue-eyed soul on the LP “Station to Station.” After that came the experimental Berlin period that produced “Low” and “Heroes,” the ‘80s pop era of “Let’s Dance” and “Modern Love,” and he even tried drum and bass in the ‘90s.

These endless shifts in style and persona are part of what make Bowie so indelible to Tomas Vu, one of the countless artists that gets inspiration from the Starman. “He’s always been on that edge,” says Vu. “He’s never really quite fit in, but he’s always someone who was pushing the envelope. And I love that about Bowie. He’s constantly shifting and changing.”

That idea of constant transformation is why Vu has made Bowie’s work the subject of a trilogy of multimedia art exhibitions, the third and final of which is currently on view through Saturday, July 19 at Locust Projects in Little River. “Blackstar 16/25/60” attempts to manifest a utopian vision based on the rocker’s final project, released just two days before he died of cancer in January of 2016, from which it takes its name. Incorporating music, video, and architectural elements, the show reflects Bowie’s own ability to synthesize disparate elements of culture and create his own world, time after time.

“He’s fashion, he’s music, he’s art,” says Vu. “And every group claims him, by the way. Nonconformists, Wall Street guys – my last show in Brooklyn, we had a group of straight-up Wall Street guys hanging out the whole time in there because they love Bowie.”

That polyglot mentality is present in “Blackstar 16/25/60.” Video projections pair footage of Bowie with Japanese butoh dance. A geodesic dome, representing the modernist ideals of its inventor R. Buckminster Fuller, contains a record player with Bowie’s works and reading material such as the manifesto of “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski, contrasting visions of technological innovation and the future, as it was and could be.

Throughout the show’s run, the dome will serve as a stage for screenings, live music, workshops, listening sessions, and other activities aimed at engaging the community. Additionally, the artist welcomes anyone to enter the space and use it as a backdrop for their own artistic activities.

Lorie Mertes, executive director at Locust Projects, says that Vu’s work fits perfectly into expanding a program that the alternative art space hosts monthly.

“With Tomas, who wanted to open up his installation to other artists, we talked about how Locust has become a hub for supporting collaborations across disciplines including experimental, avant-garde music and performances monthly in the Knight DiLL (Digital Innovation Lounge + Lab) to hosting the International Noise Conference supported by two of our staff who are also musicians, which all fed into his interest in seeing creative layering and collaborations in dialogue with Bowie’s legacy in ‘Blackstar.’ ”

Vu chose to stage the final show in the trilogy at Locust Projects specifically because he felt the artist-run space’s ethos was compatible with his goals for the project, which includes allowing for impromptu, unofficial activations.

“I was very interested in an alternative kind of space, not interested in the ‘white cube.’ I wanted a space with history and that interacts with the community,” he says. “What I’m doing is I’m inviting everyone, anyone who wants to come in and do their intervention to it, they can come in. Like, if you want to come in and start a jam session, we don’t say no. The instruction is like, you can do anything. You can’t destroy the art that’s here, but you can do whatever you want with it. You can occupy it, take it over. And I love that idea. And Locust is the only place that said yes, we can do all that, we want to support those kinds of ideas. In a way that’s part of their mission, you know. So that’s why Locust and why Miami.”

Mertes says that Locust Projects is a place meant for artists to realize ambitious work that might not be possible in a different type of art environment.

“Our space is known as a blank slate for experimentation and for supporting artists in realizing big, bold, ambitious, and sometimes audacious ideas, as part of pushing their practice in ways that museums or galleries can’t or won’t support,” she says. “So long as we continue to have the support to do the vital work that we do for an artist’s practice, we will aim to do just that.”

In Berlin and New York, Vu took on “Space Oddity” and “The Man Who Fell To Earth,” two Bowie projects that hold deep resonance with the artist. Born in Vietnam, these two brief moments of Bowie’s long career relate back to his own life, from boyhood in Saigon amidst the chaos of the American War, to adolescence in El Paso, Texas. He recalls watching the moon landing at a G.I. bar in 1969, the same year “Space Oddity” introduced Bowie to the world.

“It takes me back to the sweetest moment of my life, in a way, even though this was during the war” he recalls.

Once in the states, it was Bowie’s starring role in “The Man Who Fell To Earth,” as an alien searching our planet for something to heal his own dying world, that resonated with the recent immigrant. “That movie in particular resonated because of the dislocation, the loss of home,” he says. Having recently arrived in El Paso with his mother, his six siblings and his American GI stepfather, he experienced culture shock, hostility from neighbors and classmates, and struggled to acclimate.

“We had to go around telling people that we were Chinese,” he recalls. “Most of these kids, their father or brother were probably killed or wounded in the war. And so they saw us as the enemy. You had to tell them you were anything but Vietnamese. And quite frankly, these kids didn’t know any better – ‘You guys all look the same.’”

Vu turned to drawing as a way to express himself in that difficult environment.

“I was in the classroom, I just sat there and drew all these great battle scenes of the war, or Bruce Lee doing his kicks and fighting or using nunchuks. And that’s how I was able to get the kids to really like me. I knew the power of the image in that way.”

WHAT: Tomas Vu: Blackstar 16/25/60

 WHERE: Locust Projects, 297 NE 67th St., Miami

 WHEN: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday through Saturday, July 19

 COST: Free

 INFORMATION: 605-576-8570; locustprojects.org

 ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music, and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com

Little Haiti Book Fest Keeps It Core But Reflects On Top-Of-Mind Issues

At last year’s Little Haiti Book Festival, journalists Elizabeth Guerin, Patrick Eliancy, and Jean Saint-Vil discussed the power of journalism in shaping Haiti’s global narrative. This year, the conversations will focus on gentrification and immigration. The festival is Sunday, May 4 at the Little Haiti Cultural Center. (Photo courtesy of Miami Book Fair)

Miami’s Little Haiti is known for the vibrancy of its pastel murals and the rhythmic sounds of music filling the air. On Sunday, May 4, during Haitian Heritage Month, a quieter expression of Haitian identity will take center stage: the written word. This year, the 11th edition of the Little Haiti Book Festival at the Little Haiti Cultural Complex will offer more than books; tightly woven into event programming are themes of community displacement and immigration instability.

Founded in 2014 by Jean-Marie Willer Denis—better known as Jean Mapou, owner of the bookstore Libreri Mapou—the book festival began after the Haitian poet and playwright took a trip to Haiti, where he discovered a book fair called “Livres en folie’ (Book Madness).” He got the idea to replicate the initiative in Miami under the Haitian Creole moniker “Foli Liv nan Ti Ayiti (Book Madness in Little Haiti)” and the English designation “Little Haiti Book Fair.”

“At the time, I was serving on the board of the Miami Book Fair International, and as I compared the two fairs—the one in Haiti and the one in Miami—I saw room for improvement. For example, I noticed that the Miami Book Fair could feature more Haitian authors to become truly international,” says Mapou.

At his urging, Mapou says, the Miami Book Fair added a section called ReadCaribbean that featured Caribbean and Haitian authors. Still, he believed a dedicated Haitian book fair was necessary. With the support of Sosyete Koukouy (Firefly Society), a cultural organization devoted to preserving Haitian culture in the United States, he launched his own.

“After three years, in 2017, Miami Book Fair joined us and supported us in terms of logistics, and we decided to rename it ‘Little Haiti Book Festival’ because of the festive aspect of it and because it was more than a book fair.”

The festival has grown in scope, attracting both local and diaspora authors and expanding its footprint through workshops, dance, music, and panel discussions. This year’s edition reflects deeper anxieties about gentrification and immigration uncertainty.

“Little Haiti is shrinking more and more and we’re becoming a small neighborhood sandwiched between the big developers’ projects,” says Mapou. The concern over gentrification isn’t new, but it’s becoming more urgent. Luxury condos and high-end developments have accelerated property value hikes, slowly displacing the very community that gives Little Haiti its name.

This year, a panel titled “The Future of Little Haiti” at noon on Sunday, May 4, is to tackle these tensions head-on. Organized in collaboration with the Miami Book Fair, the conversation explores how the neighborhood might preserve its character amid redevelopment.

“Community members will examine what preservation, policy, and place-making really mean,” says Michele Jessica (“M.J. Fievre”) Logan, coordinator of ReadCaribbean and a representative of Miami Book Fair. “It’s less about adding for the sake of novelty and more about staying rooted while evolving.”

There’s not a singular theme for this year’s book festival, but if one idea should thread this year’s programming together, it would be the concept of “dwelling,” according to Logan. “Dwelling, not only in a physical space, like Little Haiti, but in memory, in language, in cultural identity. How do we inhabit spaces that are constantly shifting? How do we carry tradition forward without making it rigid?”

Alongside gentrification, immigration policy looms over the event. The festival will respond with a panel titled “Retounen Lakay (Going Back Home): Protected Status, Policy Shifts, And Deportation” featuring legal experts such as Ariol Eugene, Paul Christian Namphy, and Ira Kurzban, known for decades of advocacy on Haitian immigration issues.

“There is panic in Haiti and panic in the U.S.,” says Mapou. “So, we invited experts who will talk about the consequences of the mass deportations on Haiti and the U.S., and their consequences on our social lives.”

The author of “Happy, Okay,” a collection of poems about anxiety, depression, hope and survival, Logan says that poetry, dance and a mural project, in addition to the panel discussions, will all circle back to the same questions.

Despite some heavy topics, the atmosphere at the festival will remain lively and intergenerational, with an emphasis on youth programming.

“Children are not an afterthought at this festival—they are its pulse,” says Logan.

Mapou echoed the sentiment. “The children’s section is very important to us because our generation is gradually fading, and we want to pass on our culture to the new generation so that it doesn’t disappear.”

To that end, Children’s Alley will feature activities that blend tradition and learning: puzzles teaching about Haitian landmarks, traditional games being revived, and art projects inspired by cultural symbols like the turtle—a metaphor for migration and endurance—brought to life by Solanges Vivens, LHD, and artist Asser Saint-Val.

While international authors from Haiti are likely to remain largely absent—due to ongoing violence and limited air travel—U.S.-based authors will step in to fill the gap. Attendees can expect new or returning titles from writers such as Kiki Wainwright, Lyonel Gerdes, Irsa Vieux, Isabelle Camille, Pascal Millien, Marie Ketsia Theodore-Pharel, Michèle Jeanmarie, Lola Passe, Keneisha Harding, and Annick Duvivier.

More than 30 authors will be present at the Little Haiti Cultural Center and the Caribbean Marketplace (Mache Ayisyen) to showcase and sign their books. Among the authors feature first-time participants debuting children’s books, poetry collections, and bilingual storytelling rooted in Haitian traditions.

“These authors represent a vibrant cross-section of Haitian and Haitian-American voices, many of whom are self-published or running independent presses. Their books appear in English, French, and Haitian Creole, reflecting the multilingual nature of our festival and community,” says Logan.

Throughout the day, workshops will offer creative outlets in dance, poetry, and drama. One will feature playwright Florence Jean-Louis Dupuy, who is known in Haiti for her Creole adaptation of Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues.” Another will be an ekphrastic poetry workshop, where participants will write poems inspired by visual art.

Dupuy, whose contributions to Haitian theater span decades, will co-lead at the festival an interactive theater workshop. “Those who participate in the workshop can expect to have fun, to come out of themselves, to overcome their shyness and to be introduced to the theatrical discipline,” she says.

Amid the celebration, this year’s festival will include tributes to recently deceased Haitian literary figures such as authors Frankétienne, Anthony Phelps, Max Manigat, and Alphonse Férère. “We’ve lost some of the finest voices in Haitian literature,” says Mapou, author of “DPM Kannte – The Plight of the Haitian Refugees.”

The Little Haiti Book Festival has evolved over the years. It grew from humble beginnings—when organizers borrowed folding chairs, passed around plates of food,—into a staple of the Haitian literary community that, as Mapou notes, has brought greater exposure to the Little Haiti neighborhood thanks to its association to the Miami Book Fair.

Beyond cultural pride, the festival also brings tangible benefits, says Mapou.

“Economically, the annual book festival helps a lot in terms of book sales. Some writers sell books for more than $700. The festival has a tangible impact among Haitian authors. They find a place to present their books to the Haitian community instead of putting them in places where no one cares.”

Logan highlights that the festival is not just a platform but a way of connecting.

“The festival is a bridge—between Little Haiti and the diaspora, between past and future, between Miami and the world.” She adds, “We want stories to be remembered, rituals to be honored, and emerging voices to have room to grow. We aren’t exporting culture, we’re extending it.”

WHAT: Little Haiti Book Festival 2025

WHEN: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sunday, May 4.

WHERE: Little Haiti Cultural Complex, 212 NE 59th Terrace, Miami

COST: Free

INFORMATION:  305-237-7258 or miamibookfair.com/littlehaiti.

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ICA Miami Showcases Pioneering Female Artists This Spring

A comprehensive retrospective on Colombian-born Olga de Amaral’s work opens at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, on Thursday, May 1. Photo is an exhibition view at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris, where the show just closed in March before it heads to Miami. (Photo by Marc Domage)

At the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, the future is female – at least as far as its upcoming season goes. The art museum in the Design District, which recently announced a major expansion, will stage exhibitions on two pioneering female artists starting in May.

First up on Thursday, May 1 is a comprehensive retrospective of Colombian-born Olga de Amaral’s work. The show is traveling to Miami from Paris, where it debuted at the prestigious Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain last fall, and will delve into six decades of work from the fiber and textile artist.

“Olga de Amaral is someone who really revolutionized weaving and textile art,” says curator Stephanie Seidel. “At first (she) made more fabrics and designs for architecture and interiors, but then developed an independent language of tapestries out of that.”

Though the show is meant to span de Amaral’s entire career, Seidel says the inclusion of two recent series of works is quite exciting. The Estelas (“stelae”), sculptures covered in gold leaf, are meant to evoke ancient Mesoamerican landmarks, while the Brumas (“mists”) are a sort of three-dimensional deconstruction of a traditional tapestry, suspending stings of colorful fabric from the ceiling and create patterns that shift depending on viewpoint. The show also includes important large-scale works, one of which has a local connection. Coraza en morados, from 1977, was commissioned by Miami’s Art in Public Places program and displayed in Miami International Airport.

“We’re excited to bring this show here in light of this connection, and obviously this influence of Latin America that is very present in a city like Miami,” says Seidel. “It’s exciting to showcase her work here. And there’s other loans from local collections included in the show that were not part of the Paris show.”

De Amaral studied architecture in Bogotá before studying at the Cranbrook School in Michigan, where she absorbed influences from the Saarinen family and other modernists. This background allowed her to create fiber and textile art with a sculptural, three-dimensional presence. Her work gained her recognition in the art world; she became the first Latin American woman to show at the Lausanne Tapestry Biennial in 1967, and two years later was part of a major group show of textile artists at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The architectural theme is also present in the exhibition design, a “forest” inspired by the views from the ICA’s third floor galleries that also references de Amaral’s work. The design was headed up by Paris-based Lebanese architect Lina Ghotmeh, whose resume includes the famed Stone Garden residential tower in Beirut and, most recently, the Bahrain Pavilion at the Osaka Expo 2025.

Another all-encompassing show opening on Saturday, May 10 is dedicated to the late Mildred Thompson, a pioneering yet underseen African-American artist who worked in a variety of mediums. A born-and-raised Floridian originally from Jacksonville, Thompson began her art studies at Howard University and from there embarked on a career full of exploration. Her work explores a broad range of interests, everything from the microbiology of the human body to the infinite cosmos.

“I think there’s just this incredible curiosity and understanding of these abstract phenomena,” says Seidel. “Some paintings, they could be like a super crazy microscopic view of an atom, and then others feel like you’re looking into the vastness of space. But to come up with a language to capture this is really kind of what connects all of it.”

That breadth of topics is also reflected in the range of mediums Thompson worked in. Much of the show will consist of paintings, from her Music of the Spheres series which celebrates the planets to the Wood Pictures made from salvaged materials that recall architectural facades. But the show also includes music by Thompson. An original electronic music composition called “Cosmos Calling,” which Seidel calls “a journey through the soundscape of space inspired by the NASA Voyager recordings,” will be played in the galleries.

Though the shows were not planned to be interlinked, Seidel believes visitors will find connections between the female artists.

“I think there’s always interesting dialogues,” she says. “Olga and Mildred, they’re all roughly a similar generation, which I think is interesting because it shows extremely diverse approaches to making art, which is super exciting for me. So it’s rather like opening up, for lack of a better word, the kaleidoscope of all these options to explore and offering just a very broad view of what contemporary art can be.”

WHAT: “Olga de Amaral” and “Mildred Thompson: Frequencies”

 WHERE: Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, 61 NE 41st St., Miami

 WHEN: “Olga de Amaral” opens Thursday, May 1.  “Mildred Thompson: Frequencies” opens Saturday, May 10. Both through Sunday, Oct. 12.

 COST: Free

 INFORMATION: 305-901-5272; icamiami.org

 ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music, and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com

A Poem Will Find You During O, Miami’s 14th Annual Poetry Festival

April is National Poetry Month and time for O, Miami, where poetry will be around every corner of the city and county. (Photo courtesy of O, Miami)

“Poetry is a revolutionary force for good,” says poet Rio Cortez. The New York-based writer will be in Miami as part of the annual O, Miami Poetry Festival that takes place all month long in April.

O, Miami overtakes the city during national poetry month with events spanning Tuesday, April 1 to Wednesday, April 30. Cortez will be in town to read her poetry on Friday, April 4 at the Cleat Miami on Key Biscayne. The Afro-Latina poet will be reading alongside Z. Yasmin Waheed, and Romeo Origun.

“I like to feed off of the energy of the other poets,” says Cortez. This will be the poet’s second time participating with O, Miami.

“A lot of the poetry that I write is based on place and really devotion and obsession of place, geographic location, landscape poetry. And so, I think that being outside (during the reading) will activate that theme in my work in a special way.”

Cortez has yet to decide on what she’ll be reciting, but the Utah native says she may be inspired by the magic of Miami to write something new to introduce at the night of the reading. The writer describes her love of poetry as “language at its most potent and most powerful. I’ve always gone to poetry at different times in my life to seek solace or inspiration or comfort or joy.”

The goal of the O, Miami Poetry Festival has always been to get a poem in front of every single person in Miami in the month of April — this might even include a poem that’s made to look like a parking ticket placed on your windshield. Don’t fret, it’s all part of their “Poetry Parking Tickets” by Christina Frigo.

While the hope of reaching all of Miami-Dade is a lofty one, it’s one that organizers continue to take seriously over a decade later.

Founded by poet P. Scott Cunningham in 2010, O, Miami celebrates its 14th anniversary this year with two new leading ladies. In 2024, Cunningham stepped down from his longtime role to relocate to Illinois. In his place, Melody Santiago Cummings and Caroline Cabrera were tasked with picking up the reins. The pair were appointed Executive Director and Artistic Director, respectively, in July of last year.

Cummings has been with the non-profit organization since 2013 and Cabrera joined the team full time in 2020. This, they say, gave them a strong advantage.

“We understand the landscape, the language, and we come with tons of institutional knowledge,” says Cummings of her new role. “It is certainly exhilarating to be able to influence, lead, and work together.”

This year’s festival will be the duo’s first in their new positions and already it has a robust schedule of events.

Cabrera excitedly lists a few new happenings that are part of the 40-event lineup: “We have a planetarium show with student poems this year; we have a poetry workshop in a graveyard, which is a first for us and very exciting; we have an original dance; and the performance of an original music composition by Nu Deco Ensemble.”

The organization will also be launching a new initiative titled “Soy de Todas Partes (I am of all places)”, which centers around Miami’s multicultural roots and the modern immigrant experience of South Florida. “It’s an effort to put 100 poems in public spaces between now and however long it takes. “Soy de Todas Partes” is really just a celebration of the majority-minority culture that we have in Miami,” adds Cabrera.

While there are plenty of festival events to choose from, both Cabrera and Cummings agree that the free-to-attend Thursday, April 17 variety show, “Where Mangoes Drop,” is the ultimate representation of what O, Miami has to offer. The event will feature performances by students in the Sunroom program, whileNu Deco Ensemble will perform an original composition. It’s a variety show that brings together poets, musicians, and artists — all the facets that make up O, Miami.

“The variety show is a new expression of O, Miami that highlights our year-round work and also spotlights how this is an organization led by artists,” says Cummings.

“We’ll show vignettes of talent from musical performances to traditional performances, and then also invite all of our collaborators, past and current, to have tabling activities… it has a slice of what O, Miami represents and is a true variety show in every sense of the word.”

There’s also the celebration of the ten-year anniversary of the popular ZipOdes, which are poems submitted that honor Miami’s unique neighborhoods and their corresponding zip codes. As part of the milestone anniversary, O, Miami is working on compiling and publishing an anthology book for ZipOdes that organizers expect will be available later this year.

“To me it almost feels unbelievable that we’ve had ten years of an entire city reciprocating in this work through poetry,” comments Cummings. Her favorite part of ZipOdes is how it attracts all sorts of people from the community, not just poets.

“A lot of the people that submit a ZipOde would never on a day-to-day basis refer to themselves as a poet.”

WHAT: 14th Annual O, Miami Poetry Festival

 WHERE: Various locations throughout Miami

 WHEN: Tuesday, April 1 through Wednesday, April. 30.

 COST: Varies, most events are free

 INFORMATION: omiami.org.

 ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.

Miami Zine Fair Celebrates The Art of Indie Publishing

The Miami Zine Fair, a platform for a unique type of artmaking, will be held at the Paradise Plaza event space in the Miami Design District on Saturday, April 19 with nearly 100 vendors. (Photo by Francisco Moraga/courtesy Exile Projects)

Philip Lique, an artist and designer based in South Florida, remembers the first time he attended the Miami Zine Fair. Originally from Connecticut, he says the independent publishing convention was “the first real community event that I got involved in” when he moved to Florida about a decade ago.

“Everyone is there really for the same reason, and it’s because they like making zines, and they like alternative publications and alternative publishing and independent publishing and things of that nature,” he says. Lique has volunteered at previous editions of the fair, but at this year’s edition on Saturday, April 19, he’ll offer zines that include creative deconstructions of Marvel comics and graphic design. The ability to share his artistic expression and learn from others is what draws him back each time.

Zines – the term is derived from magazine and refers to independently or self-published print works – have always held importance for alternative and subcultural movements. Black artists self-published “little magazines” during the Harlem Renaissance, and many other communities and political groups have used the form to share information, from science fiction fans to feminists, punks, and feminist punks.

“Just by being around and observing what other people are doing, you’re learning about either the craft of making these books, or these magazines or zines, or whatever you want to classify them as,” says Lique “I feel like I’m learning about what the temperature of culture is, among young people and among others, in a space where I’m learning it firsthand. I’m not observing it via social media. It’s not being sold to me via an advertisement.”

The Miami Zine Fair is a platform for this unique type of media, where dozens of zine makers – artists and designers, nonprofits and other organizations – can bring their creative work to the public.

“The great thing about zines is it’s totally open access. Anyone can make a zine,” says Amanda Keeley, founder of Exile Projects and the Miami Zine Fair. “A lot of zines are kind of DIY, but then you also see zines that are absolutely gorgeously designed, and so it’s like the full gamut.”

The fair started as an outgrowth of Exile Books, now Exile Projects, a pop-up artist bookstore Keeley started in 2014 that evolved into a publishing house in Little Haiti. “It was called Exile because we constantly moved. We had no home, and then we would keep shifting locations.” They started the fair while in residence at the YoungArts Foundation in Edgewater in 2015, holding the event outdoors with around 60 vendors in 98-degree heat.

“We had lots of zine workshops happening in the gallery, and it was cool there. So everyone wanted to be in the workshops,” recalls Keeley.

Despite the heat, the event was successful, setting the groundwork for future fairs. The last edition in 2019 at the Little Haiti Cultural Center attracted 120 exhibitors and over 4,000 visitors, an expansion that felt slightly too rapid for Keeley. After taking a break due to the pandemic, Exile held a few smaller events, such as a 2022 fair focused on food and wellness at the Underline in Brickell.

But people kept asking when the main event would return, says Keeley, and so 2025’s edition, which celebrates Exile’s 10th anniversary, is the zine fair’s big comeback.

Nearly 100 vendors will take over the Paradise Plaza Event Space in the Design District. Additionally, quite a few local organizations have been brought on to assist with organizing and staging events, including Sweat Records, the Miami Paper and Printing Museum, and Radiator Comics. Dale Zine, which hosts several smaller zine fairs every year, will host the afterparty.

The O, Miami Poetry Festival, which runs through April and has been collaborating with the Zine Fair since its foundation, is one of the more prominent partners. They will table at the fair and stage two special projects, a photobook workshop and a “poetic domino game activation” in which the dominos use words and phrases instead of numbers.

One debut program comes from the group Black Miami-Dade, an organization dedicated to raising awareness of Miami’s Black history. Founded by journalist Nadege Green, its zines dive into Miami’s Black cultural heritage, and their table will feature a vinyl storytelling experience exploring musicians such as Cab Calloway and Josephine Baker. Keeley was already a fan of the project and reached out to invite them to show their work, only to find that they had already applied.

“They’re making these really beautiful zines that document and archive Black history within Miami,” Keeley says. “I’m really excited to check (them) out.”

Keeley hopes the fair will serve as a means for people to connect with each other and learn more about the culture of independent publishing.

“A really cool thing that’s a tradition in the zine fair, is a lot of times they trade (their zines). So it’s not just buying a zine, it’s also trading, and it’s connecting.”

WHAT: Miami Zine Fair

WHERE: Paradise Plaza event space, Miami Design District, 151 NE 41st St., Miami

WHEN: Noon to 5 p.m., Saturday, April 19

COST: Free, but RSVP requested.

INFORMATION: miamizinefair.com

 ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.

Eduardo Molina’s ‘Holy Maze’ Takes Viewers on a Personal Journey

“Sin Fin,” a 2023 piece by Venezuelan artist Eduardo Molina, is part of “Holy Maze,” an exhibition at Arts Connection Foundation in North Miami featuring the artist’s paintings, sculptures, videos, and music. Curated by Cuban-born Félix Suazo, the show opens Saturday, March 15 and runs through Saturday, April 5. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

Graffiti and comic books, once considered marginal creative expressions, have evolved into fundamental influences on contemporary art. Artists such as Basquiat, Keith Haring, and Os Gêmeos have brought urban art into museums and auctions, while comics have inspired creators like Roy Lichtenstein and R. Crumb, merging graphic narrative with pictorial aesthetics. At this intersection, Venezuelan artist Eduardo Molina draws references from both worlds, employing a vibrant and expressive visual language that oscillates between the playful and the subversive, reclaiming cult elements as legitimate tools for artistic creation and exploration.

“I grew up in Caracas, where graffiti was always present. In its early days, it mainly consisted of signatures and words on the streets, but by the late 1980s, it became more elaborate, and that’s when I joined the movement,” says Molina, who has been living and working in Miami since 2013. “That experience allowed me to absorb elements of urban art while developing my own visual language. It also sparked my interest in Mexican muralists, particularly Diego Rivera, whose expressiveness, use of color, and dynamic figures deeply impacted me. Street art has always fascinated me.”

Titled “Holy Maze,” Molina embarks on an immersive journey that combines painting, sculpture, video, and music to explore philosophical concerns about spirituality and introspection. Curated by Cuban-born Félix Suazo, the exhibition is at the Arts Connection Foundation (ACF), is a nonprofit organization that supports the development of new proposals from artists and researchers in South Florida. It opens Saturday, March 15 and runs through Saturday, April 5.

The exhibition features work created over a decade that not only reflect Molina’s street art influences but also his practice of Buddhism, meditation, and his personal migration journey from Venezuela to the United States.

“The guiding thread of my work in recent years is the result of both a spiritual and artistic journey. I have been practicing Buddhism for a long time, and that discipline has profoundly influenced my perception of life and art,” explains Molina. The artist began his drawing studies at the Cristóbal Rojas School of Arts in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1983 and 1984 before moving to Spain, where he earned a degree in Fine Arts from the University of Salamanca, specializing in painting, in 1991.

“That’s why I strive to highlight contrasts in my work: the present self and its inner dialogue, breathing, the here and now. Essentially, it is a balance between the impulsive act of painting and introspection,” he adds.

For the artist—who also adapted Zen Buddhist stories to create a comic titled “Historias de la nada” (Stories of nothingness)—the exhibition’s “symbolic labyrinth” invites reflection on the journey of the soul and personal transformation. “Life is a labyrinth we begin navigating from birth to death. Along the way, we go through different stages, and with each one, we are reborn. For me, that constant cycle of change is fundamental in my imagery—closures and new beginnings. For many Venezuelans who have emigrated, each stage is like a death and rebirth, an opportunity to rebuild ourselves and keep moving forward,” explains Molina.

Suazo, who earned a master’s degree in Museology from the University of Valladolid, Spain, and works as an art advisor in Miami, asserts that the selected works provide a comprehensive representation of Molina’s artistic trajectory.

“Eduardo Molina is, essentially, a multimedia artist who has worked with various platforms throughout his career. For this exhibition, he has anchored his work in pictorial discourse—75 percent of the pieces are paintings—while integrating installation, video, and sound. The video, in particular, functions as a device that mirrors the logic of thought, while the sound accompanies the exhibition not merely as music but as an extension of the sensory experience.”

According to Suazo, the exhibition serves as a metaphor for a spiritual journey. “Together with the artist, we selected key moments that suggest a beginning, a development, and a climax without resorting to a literal narrative.”

The curator says that the format allows the viewer to explore the exhibition in a personal way.

“We aimed for it to be a reflection of the artist’s temporal and artistic evolution in a distinct time and space. Our challenge was to structure this transition in the best way possible, creating a marked yet flexible path where the pieces communicate with each other without being constrained by a linear structure.”

For this reason, the works are not arranged in chronological order but according to their impact within the exhibition space. “We sought to ensure that each piece enhanced the exhibition’s central idea and that its placement maximized the viewer’s experience,” adds Suazo.

Sound also plays a fundamental role in the exhibition. Molina and Suazo collaborated with the sound collective Primal Ensemble—composed of Beto Molina, Francisco Cabrujas, and Andrés Michelena—whose work is based on a spiritual exploration of sound. Primal Ensembles’ “soundscapes” are created through improvisation with flutes, ceremonial drums, keyboards, and percussion, aiming to induce heightened states of consciousness. “Their music will be integrated into the exhibition, both as part of the artworks and through live performances, including a special concert during the show,” says the curator.

Molina’s studio is located in a quiet, almost rural area in southwest Miami, far from the noise of the city. The peaceful environment influences both his artistic process and the atmosphere of the exhibition. “The show aims to translate his studio—his private ‘chapel’—into the public gallery space. It condenses over 15 years of artistic evolution into an experience that, in just over an hour, allows viewers to journey alongside the artist through his creative and spiritual process,” says Suazo.

Viewers will immerse themselves in a symbolic and mythological universe filled with creatures, signs, writings, mentors, archangels, and the artist’s personal references, says the curator. “All of this blends into an iconography that, while urban in aesthetic, is imbued with the chromatic exuberance of his rural surroundings,” says Suazo.

Suazo emphasizes the significance of an essential element in the exhibition – a labyrinth.

“The labyrinth is both physical and symbolic. It reminds us that the path from one point to another is never a straight line but a series of challenges, doors to open, and corridors to navigate. Molina’s work invites us to embrace this journey as one of self-discovery.”

 WHAT: “Holy Maze” by Eduardo Molina

WHEN: 3 to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Opens Saturday, March 15 through Saturday, April 5.

WHERE: Arts Connection Foundation, 676 NW 23rd St., North Miami

COST: Free

INFORMATION: 305-546-7304 and https://artsconnectionfoundation.org/

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