Filmmaker’s ‘Mango Movie’ Deconstructed Into Exhibition At Green Space

One of the participants in Jayme Kaye Gershen’s “Mango Movie” is shown in the film. Now, a multi-sensory art exhibit at Green Space Miami, “When Mangos Last In My Backyard Bloom’d” through Saturday, Aug. 9, is a deconstruction of the movie. (Photo by Oscar J. Lobo)

What began as a 13-minute short film about South Florida’s beloved mango has evolved into an immersive exhibit at Green Space Miami.

Jayme Kaye Gershen’s “When Mangos Last In My Backyard Bloom’d,” through Saturday, Aug. 9, is a multi-sensory art exhibit – a deconstruction of her original “Mango Movie.”

The film, shot at the Legion Park Farmers Market in the summer of 2023, featured 22 people eating mangoes, highlighting the diverse, and sometimes, emotive reactions of Miamians immersed in the fruit.

A detail of the mango tree sculpture with the mango seed structure in the background at “When Mangos Last in My Backyard Bloom’d” at Green Space Miami. (Photo by Alfonso Duran)

The exhibit features eight screens with interviews from that day at the farmers market, along with immersive sound design, and a physical installation made from mango seeds.

Visitors are invited to eat mangos, interact with the installation, and contribute their own mango seeds to a growing sculpture, making the experience both personal and communal.

“You walk into the exhibit, you pick your mango from this mango sculpture we’ve built, we cut it for you, and you walk around and eat mangos, smell mangos, hear mangos, taste mangos, feel the mango. It’s a visceral sort of experience,” says Gershen.

And there are more stories to be gathered from the experience, says the filmmaker. “To continue telling the stories, and rather than doing that through film, we’re filling one of the walls on the sculpture where mango seed husks are empty. We’ve been filling it with the mangos that people eat in the gallery.”

She finds that this becomes a physical portrait of the city as visitors leave their own mark on the exhibit.

Young visitors place their mango seeds in the mango tree wishing well at Jayme Kaye Gershen’s exhibit, “When Mangos Last in My Backyard Bloom’d” at Green Space Miami. (Photo by Carolina Mendendez)

“After you’ve enjoyed your mango, there’s a sink, and you dig into the seed there, leave your mark, drop it in a wishing well and then we collect that, clean them, seal them and add them to the sculpture.”

This evolution from film to multi-layered exhibition was driven by a desire to connect the community in new ways, moving beyond traditional film screenings to create a shared, physical, and sensorial experience.

The project, she says, demonstrates how film can be taken “off screen” and transformed into an impactful, participatory art experience. The exhibit encourages conversations about memory, climate, and local culture, and has become a community connector, engaging people of all ages and backgrounds.

There have been various participatory events throughout the run, culminating in a three-part workshop series, “Mango Artist Bookmaking.” “Mango Husk Paper Making” on Saturday, Aug. 2, from 2 to 5 p.m., is led by Ọmọlará Williams McCallister, “Mango Leaf Pigment Painting,” on Sunday, Aug. 3, from 3 to 5 p.m., is with Gabriela Serra, and the final workshop, “Mango Book Stab Binding” with Nicole Combeau is on Saturday, Aug. 9, from 3 to 5 p.m.

The mango seed husk structure in Jayme Kaye Gershen’s exhibit, “When Mangos Last in My Backyard Bloom’d.”  (Photo by Alfonso Duran)

The closing event, from 6 to 8 p.m. on Saturday, August 9, and hosted by the Subtropic Film Festival, is a “Making Of” panel that explores how the short film was transformed into an immersive exhibit.

“Miami has all these disparate parts, but there are some things that bring us together and mangos are one of them,” says the filmmaker and artist.

It was during King Mango season in the summer of 2022 that Gershen started noticing that there were these “endless amounts of mangoes.”

While mangoes are not considered at risk in Florida, Gershen found that she could tie the concept to climate chaos.

“You don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s hard to predict, you know? The thought was about getting us to reminisce about something that’s still here. it gets people talking and thinking about things before we lose them. And, this project has been a community connector.”

Jayme Kaye Gershen in the midst of her mango exhibition at Greenspace Miami. (Photo by Alfonso Duran)

Originally from Springfield, Mass., Gershen moved to Miami in 2007. While cat sitting at a friend’s house where a mango tree bloomed in the backyard, she started collecting mangoes. “I didn’t have a car at the time, and I was biking all over town trying to give them away so they wouldn’t go to waste.”

She noticed that there was a bit of an obsession in South Florida with mangos. “Friends would have mango parties and swaps and someone would want to try a mango from one person’s tree to see if it was different from theirs.”

It became a bit of an obsession for her, too. “There’s 600 varieties of mangos in South Florida. And, it’s said, through some of the farmers I have talked to, that there are 5,000 varieties of mangos in the world.”

She also realized that there was something about how people connected with the edible stone fruit that also related to her artistic practice.

“All of my work is about connection in surprising ways.”

She says the discovery of mangos has been a gift.

A visitor watches the films at Jayme Kaye Gershen’s exhibit, “When Mangos Last in My Backyard Bloom’d” at Green Space Miami. (Photo by Carolina Mendendez)

“I’ve been in Miami for almost 20 years, applying to grants and being an artist in my way and having all of these big ideas that were sort of hard to realize. This particular project seems like it has unlocked some doors that I had been knocking on for a long time.”

The exhibit has also been a way for the filmmaker to look outside of the traditional ways people experience a movie, and the limits that are placed on the experience.

She’s currently working on a concept of a “choose your own adventure” where the audience becomes the editor.

“Essentially, it would be a physical maze of rooms similar to what we have in this exhibition, but on all sorts of different topics that tie you together to an experience understanding the different ways we all see Miami.”

It’s also brought contemplation on what her place as a filmmaker will be in the future.

“The exhibit has been an interesting experiment about how we can take film outside of the theater and bring it to the people. I am really interested in immersive filmmaking and how we actually move people to feel that they are seen in the films they are engaging with.”

WHAT: “When Mangos Last in My Backyard Bloom’d”

WHEN: Through Sunday, Aug. 9. Workshops: 2 to 5 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 2, Mango Husk Paper Making;  3 to 5 p.m., Sunday, Aug. 3, “Mango Leaf Pigment Painting,” and 3 to 5 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 9, “Mango Book Stab Binding.” 6 to 8 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 9, “Making Of” panel discussion.

Regular hours: noon to 6 p.m., Thursday, through Sunday; Monday through Wednesday, by appointment.

WHERE: Green Space Miami, 7200 Biscayne Boulevard, Miami

COST: Free – Sign up for workshops at Eventbrite

INFORMATION: 786-266-6392 or www.greenspace.org.

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