A Constellation of Place and Spirit: A Must-See Exhibition at MOCA North Miami
Through October 4, 2026
Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami (MOCA)
In a moment when regional narratives are gaining renewed critical attention, the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami presents a compelling group exhibition that invites viewers to reconsider the relationship between spirituality, heritage, and place. Organized as part of MOCA’s 30th anniversary programming, this exhibition stands not only as a celebration, but as a statement—one that positions South Florida as a site of complex cultural production.
Co-curated by Kimari Jackson and Laura de Socarraz-Novoa, the exhibition brings together a diverse group of artists whose practices move fluidly across ceramics, textiles, photography, film, and installation. What emerges is not a singular narrative, but a field of interconnected perspectives, each engaging with transformation—personal, ecological, and cultural.
Artists in Focus
Jen Clay
Clay’s work operates within immersive installation, often blending mythological narratives with contemporary anxieties. Her environments feel both playful and unsettling, inviting viewers into psychological and emotional terrains.
Luke Jenkins
Jenkins engages with materiality through sculptural interventions that question permanence and decay. His work reflects an acute sensitivity to time and transformation within physical structures.
Gerbi Tsesarskia
Tsesarskia’s practice navigates identity and displacement, often through layered visual languages that merge personal history with broader geopolitical narratives.
Mark Delmont
Delmont’s work examines the intersection of memory and place, constructing visual frameworks that echo the fragmented nature of lived experience.
Elliot and Erik Jimenez
Working collaboratively, the Jimenez brothers explore duality—both in form and concept—creating works that reflect dialogue, tension, and shared authorship.
Diana Larrea
Larrea’s conceptual approach often revisits overlooked histories, challenging dominant narratives and questioning systems of representation.
Amanda Linares
Linares investigates cultural identity through material exploration, often embedding personal and collective memory within her work.
Rachelle Salnave
Salnave’s multidisciplinary practice centers on diaspora and storytelling, weaving together sound, image, and performance to create layered narratives.
Onajide Shabaka
Shabaka’s work is deeply rooted in spirituality and ritual, engaging with ancestral knowledge and the continuity of cultural practices.
Lauren Shapiro
Through ceramics, Shapiro explores fragility and transformation, often referencing the natural world and its processes of change.
Nina Surel
Surel’s installations blur the boundaries between object and environment, creating spaces that engage perception and bodily experience.
Lisu Vega
Vega’s work reflects on landscape and belonging, often addressing the emotional and political dimensions of place.
Lauren McAloon
McAloon’s practice engages with abstraction as a language of introspection, exploring internal states through material form.
Carol Munder
Munder’s work often reflects on systems—biological, social, and ecological—creating visual dialogues that connect micro and macro realities.
Manuela Gonzalez
Gonzalez’s practice centers on cultural memory and identity, weaving together personal narratives with broader social contexts.
A Regional Vision with Global Resonance
What distinguishes this exhibition is not only its diversity of media, but its conceptual coherence. Each artist, while distinct, contributes to a broader meditation on how identity is shaped—by geography, by history, and by invisible systems of belief.
South Florida, often perceived through the lens of its art fairs and market dynamics, here reveals another dimension: one of depth, introspection, and cultural layering.
An Invitation
This is not simply an exhibition to see—it is one to experience slowly.
To walk through these works is to encounter a series of questions:
- How do we locate ourselves within a place?
- What histories do we carry, and which do we inherit?
- How does art mediate between the visible and the intangible?
In its 30th anniversary, MOCA does not look back—it expands outward.
And in doing so, it offers one of the most thoughtful exhibitions in the region this year.
On view through October 4, 2026
Wed: 12:00 PM – 7:00 PM | Thu–Sun: 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM
About the South Florida Cultural Consortium
The South Florida Cultural Consortium (SFCC) is an alliance of the arts councils of Broward, Martin, Miami-Dade, Monroe and Palm Beach Counties. Established in 1988, this Interlocal Agreement works to foster cooperation across the South Florida region to help develop and promote the work of cultural organizations, artists, and the audiences that they serve. Its programs and services range from the Visual and Media Artists Grant Program to regional arts education and cultural tourism cooperative ventures. grants visual and media artists. The 2026 Visual and Media Artist exhibition featuring the program’s 2025 grant recipients is co-curated by MOCA Curatorial Assistant Kimari Jackson and guest curator Laura Novoa. The group show features 14 artists and one artist collaborative exploring themes of spirituality, heritage, and reconnection to home. Participating artists include: Jen Clay, Luke Jenkins, Gerbi Tsesarskaia, Mark Delmont, Elliot & Erick Jiménez, Diana Larrea, Amanda Linares, Rachelle Salnave, Onajide Shabaka, Lauren Shapiro, Nina Surel, Lisu Vega, Lauren McAloon, Carol Munder, and Manuela Gonzalez.
Spanning ceramics, textiles, photography, film, and installation, the exhibition reveals the rich conceptual and material diversity of the region’s contemporary art scene. Through these varied approaches, the show traces a cyclical meditation on life, transformation, and place, creating a cohesive dialogue that situates individual artistic practices within the broader cultural and ecological narratives shaping South Florida today.
The South Florida Cultural Consortium is a regional initiative in support of the arts governed by an Interlocal Agreement among the counties of Broward, Martin, Miami-Dade, Monroe and Palm Beach. The Consortium’s members are the local arts agencies of these five counties, including the Broward County Cultural Division, the Arts Council of Martin County, the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs, the Florida Keys Council of the Arts, and the Cultural Council for Palm Beach County. The Consortium works to foster cooperation across the South Florida region to help develop and promote the work of cultural organizations and artists and the audiences that they serve. Its programs and services range from the Visual and Media Artists Program to regional arts education and cultural tourism cooperative ventures. Each year, more than 300 artists who live and work throughout the five counties submit their applications for consideration to the South Florida Cultural Consortium’s Grant Program for Visual and Media Artists. Regional and national panels comprised of experts in visual art, film, and media from a variety of academic and major visual arts institutions are given the responsibility of recommending the final recipients. The South Florida Cultural Consortium is one of the most successful regional arts alliances in the nation, demonstrating that by sharing resources and best practices, the arts can thrive across a burgeoning five-county area.
The South Florida Cultural Consortium is made possible with major support from the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners, and the Boards of County Commissioners of The Broward County Cultural Division, The Cultural Council for Palm Beach County, The Arts Council of Martin County, and the Florida Keys Council of the Arts.
Artists interested in learning about grant opportunities through the South Florida Cultural Consortium should visit Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs, Art in Public Places.
