Art on the Plaza

This annual program, inaugurated in 2020, provides an opportunity for South Florida artists to engage with the museum and its community, employing MOCA’s front plaza as a platform to elevate their site-specific, temporary public art installations.

The 2024 Art On The Plaza Artists are: Yanira Collado, Christopher Mitchell, and Nicole Salcedo.

On view from March, sculptor Yanira Collado showcases, For those who transcend in the wind/En los Ritmos de Oya/ Nanritm yo Oya, a series of wind-propelled pinwheels, placed in MOCA’s fountain, which serve as a symbolic gesture representing joy, protection, spirituality, and the cycles of life, particularly within the African Diaspora of the Caribbean and Black North American communities.

In June MOCA’s Plaza will unveil Christopher Mitchell's photographic series, Haitian Mermaids. In the presentation, theHaitian-American photographer and director captures portraits of community members transformed into life-sized mermaids, adorned in vibrant Kanaval-style costumes. These captivating images will be showcased floating gracefully on and underwater in the fountain.

Nicole Salcedo’s EarthGate – going on view in September – will culminate as the final installation of the 2024 series, offering a transformational threshold for visitors to pass through and honoring the spirit of the Earth and our inherent interconnectedness with all beings. The Cuban-American artist's multidisciplinary practice spans sculpture, fibers, performance, film, drawing, and mark-making. Drawing from the legacies of Cuban women artists, such as Ana Mendieta and Belkis Ayón, Salcedo integrates botany, fractals, electromagnetic physics, and animistic spirituality to explore land-consciousness and the interplay between the body and its environment.

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