At the Jewish Museum of Florida, Pot in Jewish Life, Both Ancient and Modern

A view of the wall text and images from the exhibition “Kosher Kush” at the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU, which is on view through Sunday, April 20, 2025. (Photo courtesy of the
Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU)

You wouldn’t think it, but the venerable ancestors weren’t averse to sampling the delights of marijuana. Indeed, as “Kosher Kush,” a new exhibit at the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU concludes, some seeds and herbs mentioned in the Bible, Talmud (and other religious texts) were likely cannabis.

From then to now, the exhibit looks at how cannabis was and is used by Jewish communities, including by Hebrew priests and, spanning the centuries, culminating in the roles some scientists and activists – who just happened to be Jewish – have played in the larger story of how cannabis went from sacred ritual to secular intoxicant.

“We really pushed for this exhibition as a conversation starter,” says Jacqueline Goldstein, curator, who says the show had been in the works for about a year. “Kosher Kush” is based on and interpreted for South Florida audiences from the 2022-2023 exhibit, “Am Yisrael High: The Story of Jews and Cannabis,” put on at YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York City. Susan Gladstone Pasternack, the executive director of the Jewish Museum, saw the show there, and according to Goldstein “thought it would be great for us. We try to create an exhibit that creates discourse.”

Another view of the “Kosher Kush” show with a Torah in the foreground (Photo courtesy of the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU)

And this one is likely to do so. What might be surprising to visitors is a view of biblical Hebrews that is a bit more intriguing than your general Torah story

Of special interest is the idea that the Kaneh bosem or the “fragrant stalk” used to make anointing oils referenced in the Book of Exodus is cannabis, according to the show’s on-the-wall entry. It is also referenced as a rope-building fiber plant (think hemp, pot’s cousin, still used today). It was also likely, the text continues, part of the incense mixture that was an integral part of Jewish religious ceremonies.

And it seems the plant was already known and used in the ancient world. According to the text, officiants at the temples of Assyria used the herb as incense as well as an intoxicant, “because its aroma was pleasing to the Gods.”

The exact composition of the incense used in the Jewish Temple of biblical narrative remains murky, but there are interesting clues, according to the exhibit. Maimonides, the famous Spanish Jewish rabbi and philosopher of the early Middle Ages, says that Kaneh bosem, imported from India, was used for medical purposes. Bolstering the argument for pot’s ritual role is that charred cannabis residue was discovered on a third century BC Jewish altar, suggesting that the herb was a regular part of religious ceremonies.

Wall text shows comments made by Richard Nixon in 1971 regarding Jews and the legalization of marijuana in “Kosher Kush” at the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU. (Photo courtesy of the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU)

Interestingly, as we move through the centuries of pot’s presence in Jewish lives, what stands out in relief is the recurrent theme of borrowing and incorporating norms of the societies they lived among – a motif that appears in Jewish art, literature and culture through the ages, as the stateless people settled in lands from Spain to the Netherlands.

Highlights of this part of the exhibition include scraps of writing referencing cannabis found in the Cairo Geniza, a discovery of fragments that lay remote and forgotten in the storeroom of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Egypt’s Old Cairo. Finally rescued in the late 1800s, the works span from the ninth to the 19th centuries. The fragments touch on many topics, from the sacred to the mundane, including a number of reefer references, including a humorous song that praises the advantages of wine over cannabis.

The greater part of research for the show was done by Edward Portnoy, academic advisor for exhibitions at YIVO. His interest was piqued after he saw a photo of a glass bong in the shape of a menorah. He thought it would be a great addition to the institute and contacted its maker, the Grav company who agreed to donate one. The question was asked if Portnoy could create an exhibit showcasing Jews and marijuana. “I sat down and thought, ‘I could do that,’ ” he says.

It turns out that academic articles written about archeological digs of ancient synagogues was a rich source of information. “Every aspect of a synagogue dig is delved into by scholars,” says Portnoy. Meanwhile, a friend and colleague, Marina Rustow professor of Near Eastern studies and history at Princeton University, just happens to be deeply involved in the Princeton Geniza Project that, since 1986 has been translating and digitizing the 400,000 or so fragments rescued from the Ben Ezra Synagogue. That trove was key to Portnoy’s research.

“You can do a keyword search,” he says, noting that the song extolling the virtues of wine over cannabis was from around 1300 AD. “For me what was so fascinating is that there is an incredibly lengthy history of Jewishness and cannabis as an intoxicant in places like the Middle East. It became part of their lives and ritual.”

Also in the exhibit show are a frequently humorous group of contemporary cannabis-related Jewish-themed items, such as the aforementioned glass menorah-bong, and a seder plate with a marijuana leaf substituted for the customary bitter herb (often romaine or endive), to name a few.

Steve Marcus’ work, “420- עשן” references the mystical nature of numbers in Judaism, in particular the belief that Solomon’s Temple stood for 420 years and simultaneously, the number became a code for smoking marijuana. (Photo
courtesy of the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU)

In another are the contributions of scientists involved in 20th and 21st-century research about the plant’s biochemical properties and possible medicinal uses, including in psychiatry and alleviating nausea from chemotherapy used to treat cancer, are detailed.

Finally, there is a section on the 1960s counterculture with lots of references to activism by Jewish figures, and popular art of the period, including “420- עשן” by artist Steve Marcus. The name of “420- עשן” references the mystical nature of numbers in Judaism, in particular the belief that Solomon’s Temple stood for 420 years and simultaneously, the number became a code for smoking marijuana.

Coincidentally Marcus has his own exhibit “Built to Last: The Art of Steve Marcus” now ongoing in the same museum through Sunday, April 27, 2025.

The show also includes several Florida specific exhibits, including on South Tip, a Homestead-based company that specializes in hemp and CBD products.

The museum intends to put on panel discussions geared toward FIU students studying law and medicine. The show, says Goldstein, “is a terrific conversation starter,” encouraging visitors to discuss what they may not otherwise talk about.”

WHAT: “Kosher Kush”

WHERE: Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU, 301 Washington Ave., Miami Beach

WHEN: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays; closed Mondays, Tuesdays and holidays. Through April 20, 2025. The Jewish Museum is hosting an Art Basel Open House from 10 a.m. to noon on Sunday, Dec. 8.

COST: $12, adults, $10, seniors/students; free admission for JMOF-FIU members, FIU faculty, staff, and students; also children 6 and under admitted free. Free admission on Saturdays.

INFORMATION: (305) 672-5044 or jmof.fiu.edu 

 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.

6 authors coming to Miami Book Fair muse about their work and coming to the fair

Pulitzer Prize winner Leonard Pitts, Jr., comes to the Miami Book Fair on Saturday, Nov. 23, to introduce his latest book, “54 Miles,” the follow up to 2019’s “The Last Thing You Surrender.” (Photo courtesy of Miami Book Fair)

At the 41st Miami Dade College Book Fair, there may be a bit more contemplation on the heels of the 2024 election. Author Amy Tan, who will introduce her book, “The Backyard Bird Chronicles,” says it’s a good time to come together in community. “Whenever you come to a place where people read books, you know you are going to find that commonality . . . shared values, a love for country that is based on something that we all understand.”

For Leonard Pitts, Jr., who will discuss his latest book, “54 Miles,” a sequel to “The Last Thing You Surrender,” he says about the fair: “If you’re a reader, it’s pretty much as close as you’re going to get to heaven and get to hang out with people of who I am a fan, right? So that’s a wonderful thing.”

The two celebrated authors are just two out of 400-plus writers who will be all in for all things literary during eight days at Miami Dade College’s Wolfson Campus for author events from Sunday, Nov. 17 through Thursday, Nov. 24. Beginning Friday, Nov. 22 through Sunday, Nov. 24, the outdoor street fair features tent-lined streets with more than 200 exhibitors selling mostly books, of course.

Amy Tan began her “Backyard Bird Chronicles” as a personal journal in 2016. It is now her latest book, which she’ll be talking about in her session at the Miami Book Fair on Friday. (Photo courtesy of Miami Book Fair)

The opening day block party starts at 4 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 17 featuring deejays and house music legends. And the conversations start with “Evenings With.” Former CNN anchor and journalist Don Lemon kicks off the “Evenings With” series of ticketed events at 4 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 17 talking about his book “I Once Was Lost: My Search For God In America.”

To find out more about all the Evenings With, go to “Evenings With’ Series Weaves Personal Tales.”

Author talks are the soul of the Book Fair and this year, writers share introspective memoirs, stories of the Black and Jewish experience, of historical figures – from fiction to non fiction. Here are six authors who candidly discuss their books and what brought them to fill their pages.

Amy Tan, “Backyard Bird Chronicles,” 6 p.m., Friday, Nov. 22, Chapman, Room 3210, Building 3, Second Floor

The author of “The Joy Luck Club,” Tan says in recent weeks she’s once again soul searching, which brought her back to what prompted her to being what became “Backyard Bird Chronicles,” which she’ll be talking about in her session at the fair.

In 2016, just after the presidential election, Tan made a decision to “check out,” especially from social media and from a country that she says felt more divisive than ever. She began studying birds in her backyard and hadn’t set out to write a book, per se; it was more of a personal journal.

“It was a way for me to regain a balance in my life, of not seeing the world as completely devastated. I did not want to react in total despair and helplessness, so I decided to seek out beauty. . . there are things that do continue in this world no matter what happens.”

She says she was reminding herself of that just days after the 2024 presidential election and how the “Backyard Bird Chronicles” helped her. “It was exactly eight years ago that I started and for those reasons, I didn’t fall into the same kind of despair.”

She says that it doesn’t mean she’s going to just kick back and contemplate nature.

“What I can do now is to focus on what’s beautiful and important in the world with relationships with people but also to be active in ways of protecting those rights that I think are important.”

Tan experienced anti-Asian sentiment during COVID “in ways that I never had before.” She’s made some commitments around that and revealed that the day after this year’s election, she made a donation – a sum that is bigger than any amount she along with her husband, Lou DeMattei, who she has been married to since 1974, had given at a single time to any charity – to the Center For Reproductive Rights.

And about the birds? “The birds are not political, they are concerned with their own territory and disputes and they are buffeted by environmental changes, but they’re not buffeted by election results.”

Tan also is reuniting at the Book Fair with the garage band The Rock Bottom Remainders, a group of notable literary names that started performing at a 1992 booksellers convention in Anaheim. They’ll perform at this year’s convention with Tan who’ll strut and sing along with a lineup that hasn’t been seen on stage for more than a decade, including Mitch Albom, Dave Barry, Scott Turow, Stephen King, Sam Barry, Alan Zweibel and more.

“We’re all standing with arthritic knees now, but I play the rhythm dominatrix. I’m in costume and I do the song ‘These Boots are Made for Walkin’ and ‘Leader of the Pack.’ Tan says remembers the group’s heyday when they played as part of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame opening in Cleveland in 1993 and gigs they’ve had with real musicians . . . “like Bruce Springsteen, Warren Zevon, and (The Byrds) Roger McGuinn.” And, she says, one of her favorites, singer Lesley Gore.

We’re just funny, we’re bad, and we have attitude.”

Susan Seidelman, the filmmaker of “Desperately Seeking Susan,” discusses her book “Desperately Seeking Something,” her memoir, on Saturday, Nov. 23 at the Miami Book Fair.  (Photo courtesy of Miami Book Fair)

Susan Seidelman, “Desperately Seeking Something,” noon, Saturday, Nov. 23, Room 2106, Building 2, First Floor

 The Philadelphia-born movie director who says she came into her own living in New York City after attending NYU film school in 1973 and never leaving, talks about her four-decade movie career in her book with a title that’s a riff on her smash hit starring Madonna “Desperately Seeking Susan.” She also has a familiarity with South Florida. “I absolutely know South Florida,” she says. “I made movies there.  And my mom lived in Miami for 30 years and my brother lives in Boca Raton.

“ ‘Making Mr. Right’ was shot in 1987 and we did a lot of filming in South Beach before it became the South Beach it is now. It was around the same time they had started ‘Miami Vice’ so it was that whole world.”

The second was filmed in West Palm Beach but also in Fort Lauderdale, 2005’s “Boynton Beach Club,” which was her mother, Florence’s, idea.

Seidelman says she never intended to become a filmmaker. “I knew I liked movies and I wanted to do something in the movie world. But it wasn’t until I started making short films that I thought maybe I could be good at it. Back then, in the mid-80s, there weren’t a lot of American women film directors.” And then came the low-budget studio movie she made after a punk drama she helmed called “Smithereens.” And she cast a woman named Madonna in her next film. “No one could have predicted the timing of Madonna’s soar to fame coinciding so perfectly with the film. But it was the right time to tell that story with those characters.”

She says she found the right time to write her memoir, which she began while in lockdown during the pandemic. “I felt I needed to wait until I was a certain age to get a perspective on things. My book isn’t just about the movies I’ve made. It’s about the journey of being that girl from somewhere else who goes to the big city and and it’s kind of a social history of how New York change from when I arrive in the mid-70s up to today.”

This is her first time appearing at the Miami Book Fair.

Leonard Pitts, “54 Miles,” 2 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 23, Room 2016, Building 2, First Floor

National newspaper opinion columnist, whose writing appeared in the Miami Herald until he retired to devote his career full time to books in 2022, will discuss his book “54 Miles,” the follow up to 2019’s “The Last Thing You Surrender.” Again, he creates it in the style of historical fiction. “I fee that (the genre) brings the history to life in a way that it doesn’t always do in a history book. Historical fiction gives you a sense not just of what happened, which is important, but how it felt to be there in that moment.”

For “54 Miles,” he says there plot elements from the last book that he wanted to deal with.

“What happened on Bloody Sunday on the bridge is limited at this point to a 15-second news clip that they show on March 7 every year. It doesn’t touch on that sense of chaos that was unleashed on that bridge. I wanted people to feel that. I wanted them to be there.”

He says there’s an unwritten coda to the novel – and that he’s been asked for a sequel to deal with the coda. “I probably won’t. We know at the end of the novel they are going to pass the civil rights bill and that’s a triumph. But you and I know that in 2013, the Supreme Court is going to gut that type of civil rights bill.”

He confides: “You know, that’s the problem with writing African American historical fiction. You may want to leave it at a happy ending or at least at a place of hope, but if the reader has any understanding or knowledge of history, then they know that what happens after you take down the lights and close the curtain.”

Co-writers PauL S. George, upper right, and Henry Green, lower right, will speak on Sunday at the Miami Book Fair about “Jewish Miami Beach.” (Photo courtesy of Miami Book Fair)

Paul S. George and Henry Green, “Jewish Miami Beach,” 11 a.m., Sunday, Nov. 24, Room 8102, Building 8, First Floor.

The resident historian at the HistoryMiami Museum and the former director of Jewish Studies at University of Miami team up to look into the Jewish community and its mark on Miami Beach. “Paul as a lecturer in the history department at the University of Miami and I was the director of Jewish Studies,” says Henry Green. Their paths continued to cross with first a Jewish American project, which became a traveling exhibit “Mosaic: Jewish Life in Florida,” for the FIU Jewish Museum of Florida, and more through the years. The pair now lends their knowledge to one of the “Images of America” books about Jews playing a role in the what became a vibrant community.

“Twenty five years later we were in a Coconut Grove library and we meet up and say, ‘hey why don’t we do something together. And one year later, here’s the book,” says Green. “So between Paul who knew the grown in terms of the history of Miami Beach and me being able to add that Jewish history layer to it . . . We only really take it to the year of about 2000 and we really look at what happened in the 20^th century . . . The achievements, the people who design buildings, the financial, the economic, the hospitality, and medical contributions,” says Green.

George says the book chronicles it all through text and images. “It’s shows a fascinating kind of growth. There was a draw to Miami Beach for the Jews – the climate, proximity to water, the idea of life and longevity and an environment like that. And they really set the foundation for their descendants to success in big ways.”

He says despite being Catholic, he’s “done so many Jewish histories.” George says he finds that the Jewish population began dwindling as people move to Broward and Palm Beach counties. “They were seen as places of opportunity with the same weather and less congested. And now the Jewish imprint there has been phenomenal culturally, politically, judicially, and in many other ways.”

Edda Fields-Black and the histories she discovered about her own family prompted her book “Combee: Harriet Tubman, The Combahee River Raid.” She’ll be at the Miami Book Fair on Sunday. (Photo courtesy of Miami Book Fair)

Edda Fields-Black, “Combee: Harriet Tubman, The Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War, 3 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 24, Room 2016, Building 2, First Floor.

The daughter of Dr. Dorothy Jenkins Fields, the founder of Miami’s Black Archives, is an African-American historian and associate professor of history at Carnegie Mellon University. In her book, she digs into her own history as the descendent of one of the participants of the Combahee River Raid, people enslaved on rice plantations and, she takes a deeper look into the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor. Fields-Black says so many accounts of Harriet Tubman omit a crucial chapter about the freedom fighter. “That raid brings together a lot of my passions and a lot of my obsessions.” She says it was, her mother, in fact, that began the research about her father’s family and family members that were freed in the raid Combahee River Raid. She found unexamined documents  — “some that Civil War historians said they’ve have not seen before.” She used bills of sale, wills, marriage settlements and estate papers from planter’s families to put together the story of what she says is one of Tubman’s most extraordinary accomplishments.

“Historians have not used these pension files in this way and it gives us a more intimate picture of enslaved people’s lives and enslaved communities. I’m telling these stories in their own words,” says Fields-Black, adding that the book also has an undercurrent about the making of the Gullah Geechee.

“It was definitely a passion project – a pretty large passion project,” she says.

WHAT: Miami Dade College’s 41st Miami Book Fair

WHERE: Miami Dade College’s (MDC) Wolfson Campus, 300 NE Second Ave.,

Miami.

WHEN: Sunday, Nov. 17 to Thursday, Nov. 24. Various times for author events; Street Fair 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Friday, Nov. 22, Saturday, Nov. 23 and Sunday, Nov. 24.

COST: Admission to Saturday, Nov. 23 and Sunday, Nov. 24 street fair; some author events have admission prices.

INFORMATION: Visit miamibookfair.com, or download the complete guide here www.miamibookfair.com/downloadable-guide

RELATED: Artburst Miami’s Guide To The Street Fair

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.

From Private Collector, Margulies Readies Never-Before-Seen-In-Miami Works

Anselm Kiefer, “Die Erdzeitalter,” 2014. Two goache and charcoal works on photographic paper and canvas and one sculpture. Dimensions variable. (Collection Martin Z. Margulies / © Anselm Kiefer. Photo © White Cube/Jon Lowe)

Every year just before Miami Art Week, one of the biggest publicly accessible private art collections in the city undergoes a big change. The Margulies Collection at the WAREhOUSE, tucked away in the northwest corner of Wynwood next to I-95, has completed its annual rehang. And this year, there are pieces on display that high-powered collector Martin Z. Margulies rarely lets out of his own home.

“There are a lot of works that came from his home, from the private collection. So we’re very excited to get to show some of these to the public,” says Jeanie Ambrosio, associate curator at the collection.

Two new shows have been installed in the museum’s entrance galleries, one focusing on historical modernism and the other on conceptual work. It’s the former that has the heavy hitters, some of which have never been seen before in Miami. There are sculptures from Joan Miró and Robert Indiana, and paintings and drawings from Cy Twombly, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, and Jackson Pollock, among others. Rare three-dimensional works from pop art legends Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol are on display.

Roy Lichtenstein, “Cup and Saucer I,” 1976. Painted and patinated bronze, 30 x 21 x 6 ½ inches. (Collection Martin Z. Margulies © Roy Lichtenstein. Photo by Peter Harholt)

In the front gallery are electrified artworks incorporating neon lights and television screens. A wall of cathode-ray televisions by Peter Coffin presents footage of wildlife engaged in play, a reminder that all species seek out joy. Chilean artist Iván Navarro created a fluorescent-light replica of de Stijl artist Gerrit Rietveld’s famous “Red Blue Chair” that also serves as a commentary on Pinochet-era blackout curfews the artist suffered through.

There are simpler works too, including a rug made of car mats by John Beech – a play on Carl Andre’s minimalist floor sculptures – and a group of 26 doorstops assembled by the same artist, gathered from the San Francisco Museum of Art and placed in a vitrine. Ambrosio says the work recalls Duchamp’s idea of the “readymade,” the idea that any object can be considered a work of art.

Mimmo Paladino, “Architettura,” 2005. Bronze. 84 5/8 x 78 x 30 ¾ inches. (Collection Martin Z. Margulies / © Mimmo Paladino)

“It’s the idea that, is anything in a museum art, even the door stops? But then, here they are.”

Photography, always a staple of the Margulies, is also well-considered in the rehang. A series of artist portraits by Jason Schmidt includes scenes captured in Miami: Text artist Jenny Holzer is pictured in front of Freedom Tower, where her work was projected in 2004, while local Mark Handforth is shown next to a palm tree. Other artists include Ed Ruscha, Maria Abramovich, the late Richard Serra, and additional famous names.

Alec Soth, “Misty,” 2005. Chromogenic print. 48 x 40 inches. (Collection Martin Z. Margulies / © Alec Soth)

The museum is also hosting an exhibition from the Barcelona-based Foto Colectania Collection, “Beyond the Single Image,” that focuses on Spanish, Portuguese, and Catalan photography from the early 20th century onward. They include images of street life in the Iberian Peninsula, portraits of people from marginalized groups such as women, Black, and LGBTQ+ people, and unsettling historical photos. A portrait of the fascist dictator Francisco Franco is contrasted with images of poor villages in rural Southern Spain.

Of course, the Margulies may be best known for its large-scale installations, including a group of monumental, permanently installed works by Anselm Kiefer. The German artist’s massive sculptures and grim paintings, relating to his country’s history and complicity in the Holocaust, will be supplemented by director and countryman Wim Wenders’ recent documentary on the artist, “Anselm.” The film will play on a screen in the space.

Some of the shows from last year have been retained, including a stately room of works by Italian “Transavanguardia” artist Mimmo Paladino (“Mr. Margulies loved the show so much that we kept it up,” says Ambrosio). But there are plenty of newly installed pieces, including a work by Do Ho Suh, famous for his transparent fabric sculptures that recreate various places and spaces. The piece at the Margulies is a facsimile of the first apartment Suh rented in New York. It’s not the only one of its kind, according to curator Katherine Hinds.

“He was lonely (in New York), as you can imagine. He came from Korea,” she says. “And one of the first social things he did is he knocked on his neighbor’s door and said, ‘Can I make a sculpture of your bathroom?’ And it’s New York, so they said, ‘Sure.’”

Do Ho Suh, “348 West 22nd St. Apt. A, NY, NY 10011 (corridor),” 2001. Translucent nylon. 96 1/2 x 66 1/4 x 488 1/4 in. (Collection of Martin Z. Margulies, Image courtesy of Lehmann Maupin, New York / © Do Ho Suh)

That particular piece is on display at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, but its more significant companion, depicting Suh’s own place, is here in Miami.

The museum reopens to the public on Wednesday, Nov. 13.

WHAT: The Margulies Collection at the WAREhOUSE

 WHERE: 591 NW 27th St., Miami

 WHEN: Reopens Wednesday, Nov. 13; open Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

 COST: $10 for adults, $5 for out of state students, free for Florida students with ID.

 INFORMATION: 305-576-1051 or margulieswarehouse.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.

International Photography Conference, Founded In Miami, Focuses on Women

Female photographers will be studied, discussed and revered at the Women Photographers International Archive (WOPHA) international conference in downtown Miami and founded by Miami-based Aldeide Delgado. Above, Keisha Scarville, “Within/Between/Corpus (1), 2020.” (Photography. © Keisha Scarville/Courtesy of the artist)

When was the last time you took a photo? Sometime today, right? Maybe within the last hour?

In today’s world, everyone has a camera in their pocket.

“I think it’s the most accessible medium,” says Aldeide Delgado, co-founder and director of the Women Photographers International Archive (WOPHA). “I mean, we interact with photography every moment in our lives, every day. When we think about these discourses that have been key for the history of art, like closing that gap between art and life, or thinking of accessibility, how to reach wider audiences, how to bring the artwork outside the museum – photography does all of that.”

Delgado believes firmly in the power of photography to change society – especially when it comes to changing how women and people of color are seen. That’s part of the reason why she co-founded WOPHA, which this month will host an expansive international photography conference in downtown Miami.

Aldeide Delgado, founder of the Women Photographers International Archive (WOPHA), based in Miami. (Photo by Gaby Ojeda/courtesy of WOPHA)

With its home base at the Pérez Art Museum Miami and at sites across South Florida, the WOPHA Congress, the second edition of the event following a 2021 session, aims to bring together artists, scholars, and enthusiasts from around the world to discuss the past and future of photography for women.

WOPHA begins Tuesday, Oct. 22 and runs through Saturday, Oct. 26.

In fact, according to Delgado, the theme of this year’s congress “How photography teaches us how to live,” is focused on ensuring the medium’s future through education.

“I took as a starting point the idea that more than 75 percent of photography students around the world are women. However, still there are no educational programs specifically addressing the history of women photographers. So that’s why I created this particular edition of the Congress focused on pedagogies, to propose this kind of new model, to propose an academic curriculum, and also to launch the WOPHA Institute.”

Education is central to Delgado’s previous work as well. As an art historian at the University of Havana, she played a key role in boosting the profile of women photographers at home in Cuba. In 2013, after she noticed a lack of female representation in the country’s photographic history, she helped build a catalog of female photo artists dating back to 1853. When she immigrated to Miami in 2016, she found a similar mission to take on.

Susan Meiselas teaching an elementary school student, South Bronx, New York, 1972. (Photograph by Community Resources Institute/Courtesy Susan Meiselas Studio)

“I noticed that there were no spaces for photography in the city,” she says. “And also, I noticed the lack of spaces for promoting the work of women photographers.”

Delgado knew that there were institutions around the world interested in preserving and promoting photography by women. She sensed that something similar could be built in Miami, and that she could leverage the city’s identity in order to build it.

“I decided to take the challenge, to fill that gap of, let’s say, approaching the field from feminist and decolonial perspectives, taking the strategic or the geopolitical position of Miami at the crossroads of the Americas as a key component for the organization, or how I envision WOPHA.”

That international vision certainly holds true for WOPHA’s programming, much of which is free to attend with registration. Speakers and panelists from across the United States, the Caribbean, and Latin America – some are even traveling from as far away as South Africa and Japan – will present on various photographic topics.

Whitney Johnson, Laylah Amatullah Barrayn, Vanessa Charlot, Daniella Zalcman, Veronica Sanchis Bencomo, and Maggie Steber at the inaugural WOPHA Congress. “Women, Photography, and Feminisms at PAMM,” Nov 18, 2021, (Photo by Diana Larrea/Courtesy of WOPHA)

Programming at WOPHA also includes a “photowalk” through Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood and downtown Miami hosted by local photo artists, networking lunches, and even yoga classes.

Throughout the Congress, iconic photographers such as Susan Meiselas, Carmen Winant, Peggy Nolan, Maggie Steber, Keisha Scarville, and María Martínez-Cañas, are given the space to highlight their contributions to photography history.

In tandem with the congress, WOPHA has also curated a series of exhibitions at various institutions in Miami. These include “What They Saw: Historical Photobooks by Women Reading Room” at the Miami-Dade County Main Library, and “Women Photographers – Shared Documentary Narratives” at HistoryMiami Museum. Featured artists include Steber, Elisa Benedetti, RemiJin Camping, Peggy Levison Nolan and Sofia Valiente. The show is curated by Delgado. It opens Friday, Oct. 18 and runs through May 4.

Locals are also in the mix at WOPHA. One presentation at the congress comes from local artist and educator, Isabella Marie Garcia, who won a WOPHA research fellowship. She’ll discuss her project “The Photography Care Matrix” at the congress, based on her work teaching photography in juvenile correctional and residential rehab facilities in and around Miami.

Hiền Hoàng. Self-portrait. ((© Hiền Hoàng. Photo courtesy of the artist. )

“I was able to learn a lot just from meeting with students and seeing how much they really need it, especially in facilities like juvenile detention,” she says. “They don’t have a lot of stimuli. I mean, they have school, but they don’t get a lot of access to create things. I saw how much more willing they were to talk about what they were going through when they were able to make things, and a lot of things that they thought about photography that were very much condensed to what they know about phones.”

Garcia, who has exhibited her artwork at local galleries such as Tunnel Projects, an artist-run studio and exhibition space in Little Havana, also had to navigate the complicated rules each facility put in place. For instance, she had to adapt her teaching to the fact that the students, as underage wards of the state, could not photograph each other or themselves. “That’s also something else to think about, how do we process identity through photography when you can’t really even show yourself in the work, not even your self-portrait or a portrait of somebody?”

Keisha Scarville. (Photography. © Keisha Scarville/Courtesy of the artist)

Garcia’s work perfectly exemplifies the idea of photography as a source for change – even politically, as Delgado says.

“Having control over representation is a political act. So, for sure, in a context where women have been shaped by photography, where Black people have been shaped by images as well, it is important to have control of that representation, and in that sense, provide visual justice.”

WHAT: WOPHA Congress 2024

 WHERE: Pérez Art Museum Miami, 1103 Biscayne Blvd., Miami

 WHEN: Various times beginning Tuesday, Oct. 22, through Saturday, Oct. 26

 COST: Free with registration at wophacongress.org

 INFORMATION: See the complete schedule at wophacongress.org

COMPANION PROGRAMMING: “Women Photographers – Shared Documentary Narratives” at HistoryMiami Museum, 101 West Flagler St., Miami, through through May 4, “What They Saw: Historical Photobooks by Women Reading Room” at the Miami-Dade County Main Library, 101 West Flagler St., Miami, through Jan. 3, “In Between Sentiments,” Nicole Combeau and Sue Montoya, curated by Amanda Bradley, WOPHA associate curator of programming, Miami International Airport, through Feb. 2.

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 PAMM, Exploring Caribbean Identity and Resistance through ‘Beyond Representation’

Performance by Danish Trinidadian artist Jeannette Ehlers’ “We’re Magic. We’re Real #3 (These Walls)” on the terrace of the Pérez Art Museum Miami, part of the “Beyond Representation” series at PAMM. (Photo by Diana Espin and Pedro Wazzan/Courtesy of PAMM)

The Pérez Art Museum Miami’s Caribbean Cultural Institute has introduced a new series titled “Beyond Representation,” which highlights the diverse performative practices of Caribbean artists and those of Caribbean descent.

“Beyond Representation” is presented through a series of live art events. It also includes a series of video performances and documentation of performances by artists from the Caribbean or of Caribbean heritage, showcased on PAMM TV, a free streaming service featuring the museum’s video art and film collection, launched last year. It is accessible on web browsers, mobile devices, and through Apple TV.

Iberia Pérez González, the project’s curator, describes it as ongoing research “because I am not only interested in organizing live art events (the live art is the artwork itself), but underlying these events is a deep interest in performance art in/from the Caribbean as a field of research.”

“Beyond Representation” is curated by Iberia Pérez González who describes the programming of “Beyond Representation” as an ongoing research. (Photo by Eliz Perez/courtesy of PAMM)

The project draws on the history of Caribbean performance art, which often blends various art forms. The series began during Miami Art Week in 2023 with a program focused on pioneer Puerto Rican performance artists. Pérez González recalls presenting “¡Fenomenal! Rompeforma 1989–1996,” a documentary about the Rompeforma festival in Puerto Rico, directed by Merián Soto and Viveca Vázquez, who received the Jury’s Prize at the International Festival of Cinematographic Arts in San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico.

This year’s series started on Saturday, Sept. 21, with Danish Trinidadian artist Jeannette Ehlers’ performance titled “We’re Magic. We’re Real #3 (These Walls),” which invited Miami’s Afro-Caribbean diaspora to engage in a communal braiding circle. This act symbolizes cultural connections that span generations and geographical boundaries. Ehlers later expanded on this performance on Thursday, Sept. 26, connecting the braids to the PAMM terrace. She emphasizes that the act of braiding fosters “a feeling of interconnectedness,” linking participants both physically and symbolically to the performance space.

“By extending these braids to PAMM’s terrace, I aimed to highlight the unbroken connection between modernity and coloniality, the natural world and the ancestral past as well as contemporary cultural practices. This gesture emphasizes how history and heritage are living forces that continue to shape us,” says Ehlers.

Danish-Trinidadian artist Jeannette Ehlers performance invited Miami’s Afro-Caribbean diaspora to engage in a communal braiding circle during as part of her performance “We’re Magic. We’re Real #3 (These Walls)” at PAMM in September. (Photo by Diana Espin and Pedro Wazzan/courtesy of PAMM)

Ehlers highlights the significance of hair in her work, framing it as a political statement: “For centuries, hair has been a battleground for identity, self-worth, and autonomy within African diasporic communities. It carries the weight of colonial legacies, systemic racism, and cultural erasure, while simultaneously being a powerful tool of resistance, empowerment, connectivity and pride.”

Through the collaborative act of braiding, participants reclaim cultural heritage and resist the erasure of their histories. The sound of the Atlantic Ocean during the performance at PAMM, situated by the sea, further evokes the trauma of the transatlantic slave trade while also alluding to the ocean’s healing power.

Also part of the project are Caribbean artists such as Puerto Ricans Viveca Vazquez, Merian Soto, and Awilda Sterling, Trinidadian Shannon Alonzo, Cuban Carlos Martiel, and Curaçaoan Tirzo Martha. “Collectively, says the curator, these artists in varying degrees expose and/or refuse oppressive colonial ideologies while creating multiple narratives of freedom, healing, solidarity, and joy.”

Martha’s Captain Caribbean persona in the video performance “I Wonder If They’ll Laugh When I’m Dead” explores themes of colonialism and daily survival in the Caribbean. His upcoming workshop, “Act of Valor,”  with an upcoming date to be announced, will focus on designing superhero costumes from everyday materials, highlighting the resourcefulness and resilience of Caribbean communities.

Martha explains, “The conditions of the daily lives of the people living in the Caribbean is the foundation for both my autonomous work as for my Captain Caribbean performances. The urgencies dominating their daily survival mode and shortcomings create a great longing for a better life.”

Curaçaoan artist Tirzo Martha’s will present a workshop, with a date to be announced, called “Act of Valor,” which focuses on designing superhero costumes from everyday materials, reflecting the resourcefulness and resilience of Caribbean communities. (Photo by Luidspreker/Courtesy of PAMM)

Martha’s work addresses the nuances of postcolonial life in Curaçao, where colonial legacies persist in more subtle forms. “As a native of the island of Curaçao we are still part of the Dutch Kingdom. So, this means that challenging and confronting the colonial ideologies are very complicated,” he acknowledges. Through his work, Martha sheds light on these complexities, prompting audiences to rethink Caribbean identity and its ties to colonial histories.

“Beyond Representation”’s digital component displays the video performances of Ehlers, Martha, Vázquez, Soto, and Martiel.

In “Whip it Good,” Ehlers reenacts the brutal punishment of whipping, once inflicted on enslaved people. In “I Wonder If They’ll Laugh When I’m Dead,” Martha blends performance, animation, and archival footage to explore the lasting impact of slavery and colonialism in contemporary Curaçao. Vázquez’s “Las Playas Son Nuestras” reflects on the toxic legacy of US Navy military operations in Puerto Rico. Soto’s “Pachanga en Dos Medios” examines the Puerto Rican experience of adapting to contrasting landscapes on the island and the US mainland. In “Cuerpo,” Martiel uses his body to confront the complex legacies of colonialism on race, labor, and migration.

The series is organized as a three-part series that explores the intersection between performance art and video from the mid-1980s to today. The first installment was launched September 26 on PAMM TV and will be on view through Jan. 26, 2025.

Pérez González notes that the opportunity of developing part of the project through the PAMM TV platform has opened up possibilities for expanding the project in other directions and sharing some of this work with broader audiences that are not able to visit the live events at the museum. “Exploring performance in relation to digital media enables a broader understanding of the multifaceted and rich array of performative practices that have emerged in the Caribbean and its diasporas in recent decades.”

In her live performance “We’re Magic. We’re Real #3 (These Walls)” and video performance “Whip It Good”, Jeannette Ehlers addresses issues of memory, race, and colonialism (Photo by ROAR Studio, Milan/Courtesy of PAMM)

Pérez González believes that the performance series challenges narrow perceptions of Caribbean art. She states, “At the core of most of the curatorial work that I do within the context of the Caribbean Cultural Institute is to engage in projects that will expand the traditional understanding of what Caribbean art is.” She emphasizes that by highlighting experimental and often underrepresented artists, the series confronts stereotypes of Caribbean art as solely representational, instead emphasizing its vibrancy and relevance in contemporary discussions.

While “Beyond Representation” is rooted in the Caribbean, it resonates on a global scale. Ehlers, whose Caribbean heritage contrasts with her upbringing in Denmark, articulates the universal struggle of navigating diasporic identity. “My Caribbean roots often felt distant, yet they have always been a source of strength,” she says. Her performances encapsulate the tension of living between cultures, bridging Caribbean legacies with contemporary European life.

The overarching goal of the initiative is to provide a platform for Caribbean artists and their diasporas to reclaim their histories. Pérez González summarizes this vision: “I see a project like this contributing to expanding the horizon of possibility of what Caribbean art can be, helping to shed light on an art form that is constantly left out of many exhibitions of contemporary Caribbean art.”

She envisions a future where Caribbean art is not just acknowledged but celebrated as a vibrant force of change.

WHAT: “Beyond Representation”
WHERE: The Pérez Art Museum Miami, 1103 Biscayne Blvd, Miami, and PAMM TV
WHEN: Live performances will be announced through December 2026
COST: Free (registration required for live performance and free account for PAMM TV)
INFORMATION: (305) 375-3000 or pamm.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.

Enma Saiz’s ‘Deering Tiles’: Where Tradition, Identity, and Resilience Meet

Enma Saiz’s, Deering Estate’s artist in residence, created the “Deering Tiles” site-specific installation, on exhibition in the Richmond Cottage Garden Room, the Deering Estate, Miami, through Thursday, Oct. 31. (Photo courtesy of Deering Estate)

The rise of modern architecture in the 1920s and 1930s brought with it a wave of minimalist ideals, rejecting decorative elements in favor of clean lines and geometric precision. Ceramics, once cherished for their ornamental beauty, were confined to functional spaces, excluded from the modernist vision.

Yet, by the 1940s, cracks began to show in this rigid approach, as architects sought to create more humanized, art-infused spaces. Brazil was at the forefront of this shift, integrating traditional tiles into contemporary buildings without abandoning local customs.

Iconic projects like Lucio Costa’s Ministry of Education and Health in Rio de Janeiro and Oscar Niemeyer’s Church of St. Francis Xavier in Pampulha, stand as enduring symbols of this harmonious blend of old and new. In Cuba, renowned artists Amelia Peláez and René Portocarrero left their marks on iconic buildings in the island’s capital, Havana.

This integration of art and architecture forms the backbone of Enma Saiz’s exhibition, “Deering Tiles.”

Artist Enma Saiz re-grouts seam lines in situ. The tiles were installed in components for easy transport. Saiz had to chisel the components and grout them apart in order to separate them for transportation and installation. She then re-grouted the cracks in the seams on site. (Photo by Lilliam Domingues/courtesy of the artist)

As a 2024 artist-in-residence at the Deering Estate, Saiz has drawn deeply from the estate’s rich archaeological, cultural, and botanical history. The result is an intricate tile mural installation that not only beautifies the estate’s Richmond Cottage Garden Room but also provokes reflection on themes of identity, heritage, and modernity.

On display through Thursday, Oct. 31, the exhibition invites viewers to explore Saiz’s unique take on the interplay between tradition and contemporary expression.

“I began working with tiles in 2019 to explore my identity as a Cuban refugee,” says Saiz, who’s now 58. Having arrived in the United States at the age of 3 1/2 years old—on a Freedom Flight from Cuba in 1969—her memories of Havana’s architectural splendor were hazy, if not entirely absent. To reconnect with her heritage, Saiz began creating Havana-style tiles, using them in performances titled “Colonial Kaleidoscopes.”

“I was fascinated by how different orientations of simple tile designs could form complex patterns that reflect the tension between traditional craftsmanship and modern expression.”

Saiz’s work in “Deering Tiles” extends beyond her personal journey. The mural also draws on Deering Estate’s historical connections to its sister estate, Maricel, in Sitges, Spain.

The Iberian influence, particularly the intricate azulejos (decorative tiles) of the region, plays a crucial role in her designs.

“I used the Maricel shield to frame the edges of my murals, connecting the Deering Estate to its Spanish counterpart,” she says. But more than just aesthetic choices, Saiz’s work is layered with historical references, including tributes to the indigenous Tequesta people who once inhabited the land.

“I incorporated the ‘coontie’ plant, a vital resource for the Tequesta, who ingeniously processed it to make starch despite its natural toxins. Their resilience is a key theme in my work.”

A view of the “Deering Tiles” installation shows the other components of the exhibition, which include a case containing the plaster molds used to pour the porcelain slip for the tiles and reference books used in creating the tiles. (Photo by Francesco Casale/courtesy of Deering Estate)

For Saiz, ceramics represent more than just a medium; they are a subversive tool.

“Traditional crafts like tile-making, often considered ‘women’s work,’ are powerful vehicles for social commentary,” she says. Drawing inspiration from movements like “The Subversive Stitch” (Rozsika Parker’s book that re-evaluates the reciprocal relationship between women and embroidery), Saiz uses her art to encode messages that challenge established norms. This is particularly evident in her engagement with migration, colonization, and social justice.

“I’ve seen firsthand the effects of ongoing colonization in the Global South, where systemic injustices drive migration to the U.S.,” says Saiz.

Her art, whether through ceramics or other forms, seeks to dismantle those colonial narratives, shedding light on issues of migration, medical ethics, and women’s rights. Saiz studied art at several schools, but interestingly, her first professional endeavors were as a medical doctor.

“My undergraduate studies took place at the University of Miami; then I was a middle school science teacher for two years before going to medical school at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine,” explains Saiz.

She then did her residency in pathology at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, completed a fellowship in Cytopathology in Houston, and worked in Seattle for four years before returning to Miami in 2004.

She retired from medicine and is now a full-time artist.

“I made the decision to leave medicine after surviving breast cancer and to raise my children,” says Saiz.

Artist Enma Saiz glazing part of the “Deering Tiles” installation. (Photo by Sofia Yaziji/courtesy of the artist)

She decided to go back to school in 2020 and received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

“(During medical school) I studied the stark disparities in medical care between white and non-white communities,” she shares. The intersection of art and medicine fuels Saiz’s drive to address the inequities that persist in healthcare and society at large.

In recent years, Saiz’s focus has evolved from documenting social injustices to celebrating the resilience and triumphs of marginalized communities. “While my work acknowledges painful histories, it also honors the strength of women, Black people, Indigenous peoples, and other communities of color,” she says.

The Latinx, multidisciplinary Cuban American artist was selected by Oolite Arts to join a group of Miami-based artists at the prestigious Anderson Ranch Arts Center in 2022, and in 2024 she became one of the artists-in-residence (AIRs) at the Deering Estate.

She explains the process at Deering. “There is a yearly application and selection process for Deering Estate AIRs for which local artists apply, and around 10 artists are selected per year. The artist chooses at the time of the application whether they want to be project-based or studio-based. There are a limited number of studios at the Estate, and I chose to do a project,” says the artist.

The artist says that AIRs go on “field trips” throughout the Deering grounds with naturalists and other experts to learn more about the rich natural, cultural, and archeological history of the estate. “We have also gone kayaking. We support each other at our respective openings and exhibitions. The curators are also very knowledgeable and supportive of our projects and provide exhibition opportunities for the AIRs through a juried process,” she says.

Artist Enma Saiz’s “Deering Tiles” installation at the Deering Estate. Saiz created holes in the coontie plant cones and left out the grout so that the glow of LED lights would come through the tiles at the level of the fire in a fireplace. (Photo by Francesco Casale/courtesy of Deering Estate)

Her work has been shaped by a variety of influences, including contemporary artists like Nick Cave, Doris Salcedo, Yinka Shonibare, and Teresita Fernández. “Nick Cave’s maximalist installations, in particular, resonate with me because he uses found objects to highlight social justice issues,” according to Saiz.

Ultimately, “Deering Tiless” is not just a showcase of ceramics but a celebration of the ways in which art can bridge the past and present, honoring cultural heritage while engaging with pressing contemporary issues. Through her innovative work with tiles, she reminds us that art has the power to tell stories of resilience, resistance, and renewal.

WHAT:  “Deering Tiles” by Enma Saiz

WHERE: Deering Estate, Richmond Cottage Garden Room, 16701 SW 72 Ave., Miami.

WHEN: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily except Thanksgiving and Christmas. Through Thursday, Oct. 31.

COST: Exhibition included with general admission, $15 for adults (ages 15 and older) and $7 for children (ages 4 to 14). Admission is free for Deering Estate Foundation members and children under 4 years old.

INFORMATION: 305-680-5219 or deeringestate.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 CAMP Gallery, Ancient Lysistrata Opens Doors For ‘We Got The Power’

Artist Katika uses crochet to make commentary in “The Power of Handiwork I, II, III.” The work is part of “We Got the Power, Women Pulling at the Threads of Social Discourse” at North Miami’s The CAMP Gallery.” (Photo courtesy of the artist)

Melanie Prapopoulos, founder and director of North Miami’s The CAMP Gallery, says she has been thinking about the Aristophanes play, “Lysistrata” — the imagined sex strike by Athenian and Spartan women to force an end to the ruinous Peloponnesian war, for more than a few years. It matters not that the war (won by Sparta, by the way) took place from 431 B.C. to 404 B.C., the issue of senseless conflict, women’s voices and women’s work is as contemporary now as it ever was.

Prapopoulos chose the play, along with Spike Lee’s 2015 reconceptualized movie version, “Chi-Raq” as an open doorway to inspire 77 women and guests (either men or non-female identifying) for a total of 83 artists, to create work for CAMP Gallery’s annual fiber exhibition: “We Got the Power, Women Pulling at the Threads of Social Discourse.” The show opens Friday, Oct. 11 and runs through Friday, Dec. 20. “CAMP” is an acronym for” The Contemporary Art Modern Project.” It’s the sixth edition, where, each year artists respond to a different inspiration.

Many of the artists selected were those Prapopoulos came to know through the Fiber Artists-Miami Association, others were personally invited and for this year, some responded to a modest call to artists that director of the gallery put out, and co-curated by Prapopulos and assistant director Maria Gabriella Di Giammarco.

View of the installation at The CAMP Gallery referencing classical frieze. (Photo courtesy of The CAMP Gallery)

In 2020 it was “The Flag Show,” marking the centennial of the women’s vote. Previous versions include “This is Not a Doll’s House,” responding to Henrik Ibsen’s play “A Doll’s House,” and “A Room of Our Own,” inspired by “A Room of One’s Own,” the Virginia Woolf classic.

In keeping with this year’s Greek theme, the works are presented as a frieze around the room’s pink-painted walls. “Let’s make our own contemporary frieze of fiber artists responding to our current problems in life – which are not any different now,” says Prapopoulos, who is herself of Greek heritage.

Each show’s focus is designed to spark conversation and awareness about how women have survived, contributed and often suffered in a world ruled by men. And, highlighting weaving, sewing, embroidery and other practices derived from the domestic sphere is a key part of the dialogue.

“The whole thing about the fiber show – its anti-patriarchal,” says Prapopoulos. “It’s women responding to institutions, the business establishments that are all male-centered.” The patriarchy, she says, and its capitalist fellow traveler, exploits for money or power those weaker or less privileged – particularly true when it comes to war, planned by older men, but fought and died in by the young, she says.

Lima-based Peruvian-born artist Brenda Kuong’s “The Freedom of the Acllas” at North Miami’s The CAMP Gallery. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

Initially, the Hamas terrorists’ attacks on Israelis and the kidnapping of civilians, had her thinking about the futility of war through the ages, and how the 20th century’s wars – World War I and World War II and Vietnam in particular – changed war’s character with their mechanized slaughter and euphemistic language such as “collateral damage.”

The works on display often approach the topic obliquely – and not all pieces directly reference conflict, but lines of investigation and connection can be drawn.

Fruma Markowitz, who lives and works in Bridgeport, Conn., for example, features Jewish, Berber and Muslim women sharing different stories – the message is that women, no matter where they are from do not have a problem recognizing one another’s humanity,” says Prapopoulos. The piece. titled “Hilloulah to the West and to the East – A Prayer for Peace,” references a 2020 trip to Morocco. There Markowitz learned about the friendships among these women from different backgrounds who share narratives, myths, religious beliefs, personal adornment and handcraft design, according to Markowitz’s artwork statement.

“Hilloulah to the West and to the East – A Prayer for Peace” references a 2020 trip to Morocco where artist Fruma Markowitz became aware of the friendships among women from different cultures. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

The piece shows some dancers facing West and others facing East, and references a Greek chorus, writes Markowitz. “According to shared Jewish and Muslim tradition, they are on a pilgrimage, a celebration known by both as a “Hilloulah,” to the tombs of deceased saints (male and/or female), where they seek to have their prayers answered, to change and influence the heavens in their favor – for fertility, for marriage, for health and healing, for the safe return of their men from war, for peace,” according to Markowitz.

Meanwhile, Lima-based Peruvian-born artist Brenda Kuong’s, “The Freedom of the Acllas,” references  Inca women separated from their families to become priestesses for the sun, according to Kuong’s artwork statement. The women were often given to rulers of other towns as part of peace treaties. Some were human sacrifices. “They were deprived of their sexual freedom, their decision-making power and subjected to working for a clergy,” writes Kuong.

The work, which has comic novel elements, makes a connection between ancient Inca times and today.

“Clipped Wings, Amplified Voices” by Haitian-American artist Laetitia Adam-Rabel, references resilience in the face of challenges. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

The approach taken by Katika, who currently resides in Russia, is direct, humorous, and engages with modern life. Part of her crochet tryptic, “The Power of Handiwork I, II, III” shows a woman masturbating – but the artist created a sly commentary on contemporary internet culture with a “blurred” effect crocheted over the most intimate parts.

Hungarian-born Katika, who goes by just one name, writes in her statement that the woman in her work “symbolizes a fearless, independent warrior, unburdened by societal taboos, and focused on peace and creation.”

With “Clipped Wings, Amplified Voices,” Miami-based Haitian-American artist Laetitia Adam-Rabel, says in her artwork statement that the multi-media work reveals how, sometimes, “our greatest strengths come through when faced with our biggest challenges. It is about resilience, determination, faith and using our talents in the face of adversity.”

Keeping the art within the fiber realm is key to Prapopoulos’ intentions. Women from time immemorial have used tapestries, quilts and embroidery to express opinions and create commentary. Quilting, in particular, has a rich protest history – of which the AIDS Memorial Quilt is one fairly recent example.

“Fiber art, in my opinion, is the most subversive of mediums,” says Prapopoulos.

Because it is soft and has domestic associations, people may not get the idea right away, she added.

Visitors will certainly get the idea from the works in this show.

WHAT: “We Got the Power: Women Pulling at the Threads of Social Discourse”

WHEN: Opening 7 to 10 p.m., Friday, Oct. 11. Through Friday, Dec. 20.  Hours 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesdays through Saturdays, or by appointment.

WHERE: The Contemporary Art Modern Project, 791-793 NE 125th St., North Miami

 COST:  Free

 INFORMATION: 786-953-8807 or thecampgallery.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.

Locust Projects Celebrates Latest Works With Indoor Tianguis Market

Daniel Almeida and Adrian Rivera pose in front of their installation “The Elephant Never Forgets” now at Little River’s Locust Projects through Saturday, Nov. 2, along with another site-specific installation,  “Niñalandia Skycoaster,” by Liz Ferrer and Bow Ty. (Photo courtesy of the artists).

Two site-specific exhibitions at Little River’s Locust Projects, engage with themes of identity, pop culture, and the intersection of Latin American and American media.

“The Elephant Never Forgets” by Daniel Almeida and Adrian Rivera, and “Niñalandia Skycoaster” by Liz Ferrer and Bow Ty, LIZN’BOW, offer immersive installations that reflect Miami’s prolific multicultural community and coincide with Hispanic Heritage Month. The shows are on view through Saturday, Nov. 2.

On the final day of the exhibitions, Locust Projects will present a Tianguis flea market inspired by Mexican open-air street flea fairs, a source of inspiration for “The Elephant Never Forgets.” An artists’ talk at 4 p.m., moderated by Lorie Mertes, executive director of Locust Projects, features all four artists. The indoor street fair, with about 30 vendors, begins at noon.

Liz Ferrer and Bow Ty, known as LIZN’BOW, pose in front of the car that is part of their exhibit “Niñalandia Skycoaster” at Miami’s Locust Projects. (Photo courtesy of WorldRedEye)

But don’t wait for the last day to see this show. Both “The Elephant Never Forgets” and “Niñalandia Skycoaster” explore nostalgia, media consumption, and representation, resonating with global political discourses.

“I really try to create pairings that have some meaningful intention to build a dialogue between the shows,” explains Mertes. “With both exhibitions, the artists delve into Latin American media, not just to reflect on personal experiences but to critique how power structures and nostalgia shape cultural identity and perception.” Her curatorial vision brings the two distinct yet complementary projects into conversation, putting in the spotlight how both works interrogate nostalgia and challenge cultural norms.

“The Elephant Never Forgets,” takes over the main gallery room. In the center of it, Almeida and Rivera reimagine the backstage television studio inspired by the iconic Mexican show “El Chavo del Ocho.” The installation, filled with 200 puppets hanging from the space’s high black ceilings, broadcast equipment, and family memorabilia, critiques media’s pervasive influence and the complex relationship between authenticity, memory, and mass communication.

The backstage view of Daniel Almeida and Adrian Rivera’s “The Elephant Never Forgets.” (Photo courtesy of World Red Eye)

As Almeida explains, “Piracy provided agency and became a transformative force… the counterfeit often becomes more authentic than the original.”

Through this lens, the artists question ownership and the localization of foreign media.

The show delves into how bootleg culture and piracy have shaped a hybridized identity in Latin America, where inaccessible content is reimagined and reinterpreted by local communities. An example of that are the puppets that Miami-based Almeida and New York City-based Rivera created for the exhibit, among them one can see American cartoon icon Homer Simpson wearing a Marvel shirt, and puppets representing different cultures, such as Sailor Moon and Goku (Japananese comics or manga) and Argentinian cartoon Mafalda, among many other popular characters. The puppets, which were 3D printed, mimic the ones found at flea markets across Mexico.

“We created costumes and sets to reflect this remixing of characters in Latin American media… inducing a message that differs from the original,” says Almeida. By blurring the lines between the real and the counterfeit, “The Elephant Never Forgets” challenges the viewer to consider what constitutes authenticity in a mediated world and cultural resignification.

Daniel Almeida and Adrian Rivera’s “The Elephant Never Forgets” installation view in the main exhibition area of Locust Projects. (Photo courtesy of Pedro Wazzan).

The installation’s set-like structure, complete with a puppet theater made from metal, confronts the viewer with a spectacle of power and manipulation also featuring screens and showcasing AI generated commercials, and prerecorded performances. Miami-based Almeida and New York City-based Rivera employ both humor and critique, drawing parallels to authoritarian regimes that appropriate media for political spectacle. “It’s like a ‘Wizard of Oz’ interaction—people can see both the illusion and the artifice behind it,” says Almeida. The overarching exhibit ultimately serves as a meditation on power, memory, and the shaping of cultural narratives through media.

In the Project Room, a smaller space located near the entrance of Locust Projects behind bright curtains, LIZN’BOW’s “Niñalandia Skycoaster” offers a visual and color contracting experience from the main room, presenting a post-apocalyptic, queer-futurist vision of Miami through a VR (virtual reality) rollercoaster ride.

The Miami art duo, known for their maximalist aesthetic and playful yet incisive critique of pop culture through multiple mediums, including a music group, transport visitors into their “Niñalandia Mixed Reality Multiverse.” The pair’s collaborative history spans almost a decade, marked by explorations of feminist and queer perspectives in Latin American pop media through music, mixed media and coding. “It’s like a culmination of our worlds coming together, inspired by everything from video games to our band project,” shares Ty.

Two visitors take on the  LIZN’BOW VR experience at Locust Projects. (Photo courtesy of World Red Eye)

The immersive installation features projections, soundscapes, and in the center of it all, their personal car—a 2006 Buick Rendezvous—converted into the VR ride’s “coaster cart,” adorned with imagery that blurs the lines between digital and physical spaces. Elements of early internet nostalgia, from “RollerCoaster Tycoon” to “Mario Kart,” mix with absurd Miami iconography—jet-ski unicorns, burning money stacks, and submerged leche jugs. The result is a critique of the often superficial yet powerful impact of pop culture on identity and representation.

LIZN’BOW’s work challenges traditional exhibition formats, inviting participants to engage physically and digitally with the narrative. “We wanted to build a theme park, but in the virtual world… it’s a way of creating a complete universe,” says Ferrer. The installation’s surreal and colorful aesthetic not only entertains but provokes thought on what defines belonging and representation in contemporary culture.

Artists Adrian Edgard Rivera, Daniel Arturo Almeida, Liz Ferrer and Bow Ty at Locust Projects. The artists will participate in a talk on Saturday, Nov. 2, the closing day of their shows. (Photo courtesy of World Red Eye)

“One of the best parts of my job is taking a project from paper and helping artists realize it in real life. It’s very seldom that a project actually ends up looking exactly like what they presented on paper,” says Mertes. “That’s the nature of the work—it’s a dialogue, a collaboration, and an evolution… we give artists the opportunity to experiment, to push their practice, and to do something that might shift their work in a new direction.”

WHAT: The Elephant Never Forgets, and Niñalandia Skycoaster

WHERE: Locust Projects, 297 NE 67 Street, Miami

WHEN: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Wednesday through Saturday. The final day of the shows, Saturday, Nov. 2, from noon to 5 p.m., will be the Tianguis Flea Market with 30 vendors. Artists’ talk at 4 p.m.

COST: Free

INFORMATION: (305) 576-8570 or 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.

A MOCA meeting of Mermaids and a Place to Call Home

Germane Barnes’ installation, “Play-House,” is the second part of the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami’s “Welcome to Paradise” courtyard series. (Photo courtesy of Daniel Bock)

Architecture is always aesthetic, yet sometimes also narrative. That is one message from Germane Barnes’ installation, “Play-House,” his homage to the shotgun house, home to many Black Americans after Reconstruction and up through the first half of the 20th century. The installation is the second part of the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami’s “Welcome to Paradise” courtyard series, which is curated by Adeze Wilford.

Meanwhile, a series of highly unusual mermaids greet visitors from the museum’s fountain as they approach the North Miami venue. “Les Sirènes,” by Haitian-American artist Christopher Mitchell, harkens to the island’s myths and folklore.

While the two works are very different, they share a link with the Black experience in the Americas.

The mermaids inhabiting the fountain in front of the Museum of Contemporary Art by Christopher Mitchell are based on Haitian myths and folklore. (Photo courtesy of Daniel Bock)

Barnes, assistant professor and director of the Community Housing & Identity Lab at the University of Miami School of Architecture, has been researching the history of the shotgun house. It first piqued his interest after he won a grant from the Graham Foundation to study porches. The Chicago-based foundation funds architecture projects in dialogue with the arts, culture and society. Barnes’ porch project, “Sacred Stoops: Typological Studies of Black Congregational Spaces,” left him wanting to know more about the shotgun house, a presence in the lives of African-Americans, particularly from across the South.

The installation is an actual playhouse – a full-size structure suitable for exploration by both kids and adults. It recreates a somewhat abstracted version of a shotgun house. While not having kitchens and bathrooms, it has a ball pit for kids to jump into, rings to swing on and other interactive features. The idea was to pull visitors into the installation in the best way possible. “What if we turn it into a playhouse?” Barnes says, of his early brainstorming with Wilford, adding that kids can literally be a part of history.

“First and foremost, people find their inner child. then perhaps learn a bit more about the history of South Florida and the way that things were built,” he says. Many will be most familiar with the home style from New Orleans architecture, where the design is ubiquitous. However, iterations are found throughout the South, though many are quickly falling prey to development.

“We are collapsing these narratives on top of each other,” says Barnes.

Barnes brings students to the six or so remaining shotgun homes in Coconut Grove as part of his teaching practice.

Rings are an interactive part of Play-House, which uses humor and the curiosity of
childhood to convey a serious message. (Photo courtesy of Daniel Bock)

It is Wilford’s second year curating the Welcome to Paradise exhibits. Like “Bound//Unbound,” this season’s earlier installation by local artist Alexandra Fields O’Neale, which focused on the Saltwater Underground Railroad (whereby enslaved or escaped individuals boarded boats to the Bahamas), “Play-House” brings to light the oft-hidden history of Miami, says Wiflord.

“It’s about preserving a legacy of homes and styles of architecture and living being very quickly removed from the Southern landscape,” she says.

The homes could be built quickly and easily. In Miami, they often arose where Black workers lived, segregated from where they labored, on, for instance, Miami Beach. Later, Black entertainers, performing for white patrons, helped create the vibrant culture in Overtown which had its share of shotgun homes as well.

“I think you can’t ignore the history of this city and that was a part of it – that is where they were able to live,” says Wilford about the segregation, noting that it remains important for residents and visitors to understand how the city came to be.

With horns and playing a horn, this mermaid sports chains around her tail. (Photo courtesy of Daniel Bock)

“Les Sirènes” reaches for a different aspect of the past. In the fountain are life-size two-dimensional mermaids. Yet they are not your usual sea-maidens. Sporting impressive fish tails, the sirens are all photos taken by Mitchell of Black women modeling his vision of the mythical water spirits from Haitian folklore. These watery denizens are clothed in costumes, some revealing, that conjure both awe and thoughts about yes, how  would sea-folk dress themselves? White and black costumes play off one another as do interesting touches, like conical horns adorning one maiden.

“They are all based on verbal stories,” says Mitchell. Raised in New York, but of Haitian heritage, Mitchell and his family frequently traveled to the island. After graduating from SUNY’s Fashion Institute of Technology, Mitchell, whose main medium is photography, moved to Haiti about a year before the devastating 2010 earthquake.

While there, he traveled the country, including helping people after the earthquake find relatives and friends when communication was down. In his journeys, he heard many stories about female water spirits that inhabit the ocean, rivers and other water features. The sea-women are often cautionary figures, sometimes luring people to their doom: But to be respected.

A mermaid with a bird sports an astonishing yellow tail. (Photo courtesy of Daniel Bock)

He created seven mermaids for the show, working closely with MOCA Curatorial Assistant Kimari Jackson. The selection of Mitchell came from MOCA’s open call initiative, designed to cast a wider net in the art community.

The artist says he wants visitors to appreciate the island’s culture minus the scariness aspect that some attach to Haitian art.

“I want it to be a very beautiful and intriguing part of Haitian culture on public display in a Haitian neighborhood,” says Mitchell. “There is so much beauty that comes out of Haiti – I wanted to show that side.”

WHAT: “Play-House” and “Les Sirènes“

WHEN:  “Les Sirènes”  is on display through Sunday, Sept. 8; “Play-House” is on display through Sunday, Nov. 17 

WHERE: Paradise Courtyard, and Fountain, outdoors at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, 770 NE 125th St., North Miami

COST:  Free

INFORMATION: 305-893-6211 or 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.

‘Brushes with Cancer’ at The Arsht: Journeys Seen from an Artist’s Perspective

Caryn Frishman unveils her painting inspired by Ashley Smith for the Arsht Center’s Brushes with Cancer program. The art will be unveiled for a viewing and a silent public auction on Thursday, Sept. 12 at the Arsht Center. (Photo by Gregory Reed/courtesy of the Arsht Center)

All agreed the progress of the work should be kept a secret. And so, it continued all spring and summer long. The great unveiling of “Brushes with Cancer” arrives on Thursday, Sept. 12 at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts.

The work was to be portraiture, but not necessarily what “portraiture” usually conjures.

Earlier this year, the Arsht sent out a call. Would cancer patients/cancer survivors/cancer caregivers be interested in talking to Miami visual artists? Would the former be interested in the artists’ visual takeaways from those conversations? Would artists be interested in opening up their practices to focus intensely on another’s story?

Interested calls did come in. Out of them, 19 pairings, most highly random, were formed: artist and “inspiration,” for that was the name given to those who had known cancer up close and personal.

Watercolor artist Rosa Henriquez was skimming through Arsht performance offerings when she first read about the “Brushes with Cancer” initiative. “I’m not sure precisely why I felt moved to join in,” says Henriquez. “I had not lost anyone terribly close to me to cancer. Maybe I was interested because so few people are comfortable talking about the illness.”

Artist Rosa Henriquez with her Brushes with Cancer inspiration Morgen Chesonis-Gonzalez. (Photo by Gregory Reed/courtesy of the Arsht Center)

Morgen Chesonis-Gonzalez, Henriquez’s Inspiration, was more than simply comfortable talking about cancer; she found herself profoundly in need of just that.

When Chesonis-Gonzalez had received her breast cancer diagnosis –  her children were just 11 and 13 – Miami was smack in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis. And so, she went to her surgery alone. Every chemo infusion alone; each radiation treatment alone; each doctor’s visit alone, albeit with her husband, seemingly a million miles away in the hospital’s parking lot, on his telephone taking notes.

The treatment was grueling: it lasted ten months. With her immune system gravely compromised, friends and family couldn’t drop by to even touch her hand. Now, four years after the initial diagnosis, Chesonis-Gonzalez remembers. “I knew I was deeply loved, still I pray I will never feel that lonely again.”

Enter Henriquez.

Once the two were partnered, even before they spoke, Henriquez sent off a barrage of questions to her Chesonis-Gonzalez – queries about favorite flowers, favorite cocktails, favorite sports’ teams and on and on.  “After all,” the artist explains, “if I had been entrusted to tell the story of this woman, I wanted to tell a whole woman’s story, not just the story of her illness.”

But soon enough the cancer stories emerged, still raw.

How to translate all this onto a canvas? Not a decision to be taken lightly. Henriquez felt honor bound to make that decision alone, as a worthy partner to her “Inspiration.”

“Brushes with Cancer” inspiration Ashley Smith, left, and artist Caryn Frishman. (Photo by Gregory Reed/courtesy of the Arsht Center)

Meanwhile, cancer survivor Ashley Smith wasn’t sure she should even apply to the program. “After all, I had never had to undergo chemo for my melanoma,” she says. “So many others had suffered more than me.”

Never mind that for a time her surgery had left a long streak of black and bloodied stiches on her face. Never mind that for months afterwards, she found herself unable to leave home for fear of the sun.

Artist Caryn Frishman, herself a breast-cancer survivor, set Smith straight. “Once anybody hears that diagnosis, they are forever changed.” And so, their collaboration, a series of conversations, began.

Like Henriquez, Frishman felt it important to carry the work alone without any direct feedback from Smith.

“I wasn’t quite sure how to start,” the artist recalls. But after a time, it became very clear.

“I concentrated on what I felt from Ashley during our conversations. I wanted to celebrate her warmth, her incredible light.”

In a very private unveiling before the Arsht’s Sept. 12 celebration, the two women wept. Frishman had painted a mandala of seemingly endless light, a bright yellow mandala, the sun now transformed.

There were tears, too, in Henriquez’s private unveiling for Chesonis-Gonzalez as well.

The work was more figurative but no less transcendent than that of Frishman’s.

“Imagine, something was made just to witness me,” says Chesonis-Gonzalez. “There on the canvas was the me I can so easily forget, especially in the day-to-day of living.  I did have fierce strength; it is here on the canvas reminding me.”

And then there is the curious synchronicity of a certain tattoo.

Hairless during the height of her chemotherapy, Morgen Chesonis-Gonzalez used henna to tattoo her head with a Nordic talisman. (Photo courtesy of Gerardo Gonzalez-Quevedo)

Hairless during the height of her chemo, the woman had turned to her familial background. Using henna, she had tattooed her head with a Nordic talisman, one said to offer protection and also serve as a navigational tool. There are several such talismans in Nordic lore, but one seemed to speak most loudly to her.

Amazingly, Henriquez never saw that talisman but there it was in her painting.

According to both artists, theirs was not a gift to the cancer survivors but rather the trust and vulnerability of the cancer survivors was the gift to them.

So how was it that the Arsht, a performing arts center, decided to take on what was essentially a visual arts project?

Philadelphia native Jenna Benn Shersher is the founder of nonprofit the “Twist out Cancer.” (Photo courtesy of Eileen O’Hare)

An Arsht board member had done some work with the non-profit “Twist out Cancer,” an organization that sees the arts as a vital therapeutic tool in support of cancer patients. When he spoke of his experience, the Arsht Center wanted to learn more.

That meant discovering the work of cancer survivor Jeena Ben Shersher whose advocacy for cancer patients can only be described as extraordinary. Her work began by accident. A Philadelphia native, Ben Shersher was just 29 then and deeply isolated due to immune suppressants after difficult treatment for a rare form of blood cancer.

“Looking in the mirror, I couldn’t recognize my body, or even my face,” she remembers. Before her illness, Ben Shersher was always dancing. Trying to find herself again, one morning she set out to dance but could manage nothing more difficult than the Twist. Still, she was enough proud even of that to post her video on YouTube. There was a torrent of response. Not long afterward, she stood twisting on a stage in front of 7,000 people in Chicago’s Grant Park.

“Everyone everywhere was twisting,” she recalls. ‘Even folks in wheelchairs . . . The phrase ‘Twist out Cancer’ had become a battle cry.” With that Ben Shersher’s direction became clear and her non-profit was born.

“There is a shame that can come with a cancer diagnosis,” she admits. “People don’t talk about what is hard.  My hope is to make a space for people to talk, to lessen not only the anguish but the terrible isolation.”

Not long after establishing “Twist,” Ben Shersher noticed a call out by another young woman in the throes of same treatment for the same rare blood cancer as she had been diagnosed with gray zone lymphoma or GZL. “The woman had described a world gone gray. Everywhere everything she saw was gray. ‘Was there an artist anywhere that would paint something for me using no grays at all?’ the woman had asked.”

And so, “Twist out Cancer” found itself expanding, taking on a new project, christening it as “Brush with Cancer,” which now 12 years later has both a national and international presence in nearly a dozen cities.

“We are learning how important it is not only for people to tell their story, but to also see it through someone else’s eyes,” according to Benn Shersher.

Artist Rosa Henriquez and Morgen Chesonis-Gonzalez with the painting by Henriquez. (Photo by Gregory Reed/courtesy of the Arsht Center)

What has perhaps touched her the most about “Brush with Cancer” is the depth of the relationships that so often develop between partners.

Both Arsht “Brush with Cancer” partners agree, now calling themselves sisters.

Indeed, Frishman refers to the exchange as nearly sacramental, “one of the core memories of my life.”

The work of the 19 artists who participated in the Arsht pairing will be available for viewing, curated by Rosie Gordon-Wallace, founder of Miami’s Diaspora Vibe Cultural Arts.

The “inspirations” will be there as well.

At the Thursday, Sept. 12 unveiling, the works will be available to purchase through a silent public auction. The art will be on display through mid-October inside the Arsht Center’s Knight Concert Hall lobby. Free guided tours of the Arsht Center are held at noon every Monday and Saturday and the art will be part of the tour. An online gallery at arshtcenter.org has also been set up for anyone to view the works. Remaining works that have not been sold will be available for purchase online. Proceeds will support the next “Brushes with Cancer” program.

WHAT: “Brushes with Cancer” art viewing and silent auction

WHERE: The Adrienne Arsht Center, 1300 Biscayne Boulevard, Miami.

WHEN:  7 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 12. Also, on view through mid-October inside the Arsht Center’s Knight Concert Hall lobby.

COST:  Free reception. RSVP at arshtcenter.org/brusheswithcancer.

INFORMATION: 305-949-6722 and arshtcenter.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.

‘Magic City’ Exhibition in Doral Ponders The Complexities of The 305

Mark Herrera’s work explores the intricate topics of immigration at DORCAM’s exhibition “Magic City: Contemporary Visions of Miami” in Doral. (Photo courtesy of Logan Fazio)

Many exhibitions revolve around Miami as a theme, but few are unafraid to trigger uncomfortable conversations about gentrification, climate change, and other pressing issues. However, we can’t have an honest conversation about our city without these topics crossing our minds. That’s why “Magic City: Contemporary Visions of Miami” feels like a true reflection of what Miami is; showcasing artistic representations of its nightlife, nature, architecture, immigration, recreational drugs, and the impact of severe weather.

Curated by Ronald Sánchez of Laundromat Art Space at the new Doral Contemporary Art Museum (DORCAM) location at CityPlace Doral, the exhibition is a vivid exploration of the multifaceted essence of Miami.

Stephanie Silver captures in detail some iconic buildings in Little Haiti. (Photo courtesy of Logan Fazio)

As Sánchez explains, “The artworks are all carefully placed to guide the viewer through Miami’s many layers—from its vibrant nightlife and iconic architecture to the urgent realities of climate change and immigration.” The artists bringing this universe to life are Mark Herrera, Claudio Marcotulli, Dre Martinez, Pablo Matute, Stephanie Silver, Julia Zurilla, and Chantae Elaine Wright.

Transforming a 5,000-square-foot former restaurant into an experimental exhibition space isn’t a small feat, but Sánchez is no stranger to working in unconventional settings. As the founder of Laundromat Art Space (a former laundromat in Little Haiti), he has experience crafting unique environments that allow art to resonate differently with its surroundings. “I’m interested in curating in unconventional spaces because the work responds to the space and vice versa,” says Sánchez. For this project, he had to place walls on casters to be able to exhibit the artwork, and even covering a full open kitchen was part of the ambitious take on.

The exhibit activates two floors that can be experienced clockwise. On the lower level, there are paintings capture the local nightlife, light sculptures reminiscent of the sun and local nature moments, small dioramas featuring iconic local buildings from Little Haiti, murals alluding to the local architecture, site-specific installations inspired by topics of immigration and multiculturality. On the second floor, there is an audio-visual installation created using historical footage that aims to bring awareness about climate change’s impact on Florida.

Detail of Julia Zurilla’s video installation capturing the impact that climate change has in the city. (Photo courtesy of Logan Fazio)

Marcelo Llobell, director at DORCAM, emphasized the importance of giving curators the independence to fully express their vision. “I wanted to give Ronald complete creative freedom. I have worked with him for many years, and I know he was the right person to curate this exhibit. At DORCAM, we don’t interfere with the creative process of the curators; we trust in their vision,” says Llobell. Founded in 2017, DORCAM is a nomadic museum dedicated to bringing contemporary art to unconventional venues throughout the west side of Doral, having called public parks, retail spots, and industrial properties home for the last seven years.

A standout piece in the exhibition is the work of Mark Herrera, whose art delves into the complexities of immigration. Herrera’s pieces reflect his deep connection to the immigrant experience, drawing from his own background as the son of Colombian immigrants.

Pastelito by Dre Martinez (Photo courtesy of Logan Fazio)

“I think that’s where my skillset lies—trying to be a translator or some kind of liaison between cultures,” he says. His recent work is influenced by his current position as a reservist at the U.S. Coast Guard, where he witnessed the challenges faced by immigrants firsthand. “One of the main themes of my recent work is how in America, we often look at immigration as a problem, a challenge. But we’re also dealing with human beings, with stories. What I try to do is overlap those two perspectives—sometimes literally—in my art.”

The mixed-media installation that Herrera created for “Magic City” is titled “Haitian Father and Son,” and is made out of found objects off the shores of Key West, where he is currently stationed. The piece features a hand-sewn sail made out of different fabrics, improvised life vests made out of foam, flotation devices, and an image of a father hugging his son embroidered in the middle.

Video artist Julia Zurilla at DORCAM. (Photo courtesy of Logan Fazio)

“In ‘Magic City,’  says Sánchez, “I wanted to offer a wide range of mediums—installations, mural paintings, assemblages, new media—to truly capture the diversity and complexity of Miami. This exhibition isn’t just about seeing art; it’s about experiencing the many facets of our city in a way that’s both thought-provoking and visually compelling.”

WHAT: Magic City: Contemporary Visions of Miami

WHERE: DORCAM at CityPlace Doral, 8300 NW 36th Street, Suite 216, Doral

WHEN: Open daily from 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Through October 31.  

COST: Free

INFORMATION: (305) 528-6212 or dorcam.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.