MOCA’s Art on the Plaza Features Three Installations By Local Artists

Avi Young’s “Bearing Bonds” depicts the silouettes of two figures, an adolescent and a mentor extending their arms toward each other now on exhibit for Art on the Plaza at the Museum of Contemporary Art. (MOCA). (Photo courtesy of Museum of Contemporary Art)

Avi Young’s “Bearing Bonds” features figures with outstretched hands symbolizing connection and community, a recurring theme in all the artist’s pieces. Ceramic chimes represent a bridge connecting community.

Their work is the first of three public art installations in this year’s Museum of Contemporary Art’s (MOCA) Art on the Plaza in downtown North Miami. The works will be on exhibition beginning Wednesday,  March 19 through Sunday, Feb. 1  2026.

Other artists exhibiting are Nathan Justice Moyer and Magnus Sodamin, who all bring something different to the public experience, many of them saying that Art on the Plaza allows them to step out of their comfort zones and stretch their artistic muscles.

Avi Young works on the installation of “Bearing Bonds,” the first of three public art installations in this year’s Museum of Contemporary Art’s (MOCA) Art on the Plaza in downtown North Miami. (Photo courtesy Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami)

The annual program, now in its fifth year, will feature installations on display for three months, longer than in past years, which is a concerted effort by MOCA staff to ensure the plaza remains active to avoid long periods without art. Extending the program into 2026 also helps bridge the gap until the next group of artists is selected, according to MOCA staff.

The trio of artists were chosen from a field of 100 applicants by a five-person committee including MOCA Executive Director Chana Sheldon, Exhibition Manager Matt Roza, Registrar Ashlye Valines, Curatorial Assistant Kimari Jackson along with Yanira Collado, a 2024 Art on the Plaza artist.

Young, a graduate of Miami’s Design and Architecture Senior High School, left for South Florida for the Kansas City Art Institute but returned to Miami when the pandemic interrupted that opportunity.

They landed a residency at the Bakehouse Art Complex in Wynwood and became an associate artist in 2021.

The 26-year-old recalls attending MOCA’s Art on the Plaza when artist Chire “Vantablack” Regans’ “To What Lengths” was the  Fall 2022 plaza installation. Large-scale braids with beads, metal, artificial sunflowers and gardenias were adorned on five palm trees.

Young said that although graphic design lends itself to how they communicates their ideas as an artist, the ceramics program they participated in at college left an impression and has inspired  new skills.

Avi Young, the installation artist who created”Bearing Bonds,” the first of three public art installations in this year’s Museum of Contemporary Art’s (MOCA) Art on the Plaza in downtown North Miami. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

Young’s Art on the Plaza piece, “Bearing Bonds,” features two life-sized metallic silhouettes reaching toward each other from separate platforms within MOCA’s outdoor fountain. Between them, a string of ceramic chimes sways in the wind, creating resonant sounds that bridge the space between them. Blending sound, water, and light, the installation forms a meditative communal space.

“This project will reflect my desire to work in other sculptural mediums, metals, and fibers. It is a new front for me because it will be a larger sculptural piece,” says Young. “I don’t want to pigeonhole myself into one medium and also, ceramics and glass I feel lend themselves to different areas of life.”

Friends of the artist have already participated in MOCA’s public program and Art on the Plaza has been on their radar for years so they “decided to throw my hat in the ring for public art, especially since as Queer Afro-Latinx artist my type of experimental art can now be shown in public. It was truly an honor to be chosen.”

When Young’s run finishes at the end of June, Moyer’s “Poetry in the Plaza” opens on Wednesday, July 2. Moyer is no stranger to public art, having worked with O, Miami, the annual monthlong poetry initiative that happens throughout Miami every April.

O, Miami has collaborated on 22 public plastic poetry installations around the community throughout the years through Moyer’s Plastic Poetry program.

Moyer partnered with O, Miami on the project for Art on the Plaza.

Nathan Justice Moyer’s “Poetry in the Plaza” opens on Wednesday, July 2. Young partnered with O, Miami on the project for Art on the Plaza. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

“We will be doing nine poems throughout the façade of MOCA, and my goal is to have three poems in Miami’s core languages English, Spanish, and Creole, and then translate each of those out into the other languages so that we can all enjoy them.” Moyer says he was inspired to have his poems accessible to all after a visit to MOCA where he saw that the exhibit text was translated into three languages.

The call for artists for MOCA’s Art in the Plaza suggested each piece should be a celebration of community and Moyer said that he immediately felt his submission would be a natural fit.

“The poetry program is an amazing way to create community-based creativity and environmental stewardship in the same space. It is a wonderful way to bring the North Miami community together and create an interactive space for all to participate in.”

Moyer’s studio work includes constructing  a guitar from found plastic and salvaged hardwood and creating trophies from recycled plastic.

A plastic poetry installation made from plastic pollution at Miami’s Lotus House Thrift Chic Boutique. Poem written by a Lotus House guest. (Photo courtesy of Nathan Justice Moyer)

During his three-month installation, Moyer will bring in the O, Miami team for a Poetry on the Plaza workshop and a community cleanup with dates of the events to be announced. With the recycled plastic collected during the cleanup, he will create the nine pieces of poetry on the wall.

“My pitch totally reflected O, Miami’s mission of ‘Miami is a poem we all write together’ and being chosen was certainly a surreal moment, I certainly was not expecting it,” he said.

The final piece in the series is “Gateway” by first-time Art on the Plaza artist Magnus Sodamin, debuts in September.  Sodamin’s exhibition “Before Sunrise” is currently on display at Faena Art Project Room.

Like Young, Sodamin has also been exploring the world of sculpture, applying it to different project which he says, “allows me to explore something new that I’ve never done before.”

He wants his work to reflect the Everglades’ biodiversity as well as its maximalism symbolizing Florida’s wilderness as both fragile and endearing.

“Wildlife converts to tell stories of interconnectedness,” he says. “One side of my piece will feature a flamingo emerging from a clam shell, like Botticelli’s ‘Venus’ and the other piece will feature an ibis standing on an alligator surrounded by fauna.”

The final piece in the Art on the Plaza series is “Gateway” by Magnus Sodamin, which debuts in September. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

Sodamin will use powder-coated aluminum, a new medium he said he is exploring, to create two pieces which will be featured in the museum plaza’s reflecting pond. He says he has drawn the two pieces and plans to work with fabricators to bring them to life.

He visits the Everglades often to explore and fish and then returns to his studio inspired to create his pieces. “I feel my presence in that ecosystem that I find so magical and it is something I want to protect,” he said. “Art is a great communicator for the public to see the beauty in that. It is really the wildlife and ecosystem that are the foundation of our existence.”

Sodamin draws inspiration from his grandfather who was an angler, his grandmother a painter and from attending high school at MAST Academy in Key Biscayne where he aspired to be a marine biologist.  My love for the outdoors combined with the arts, is what led me in that direction.”

WHAT: MOCA Art on the Plaza 

 WHERE: Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), 770 NE 125 St., North Miami

WHEN: Wednesday, March 19 through Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026

 COST: Free

 INFORMATION:  https://www.mocanomi.org/posts/2025-art-on-the-plaza-artists

 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.