Podcasts about Locust Projects

Carolina Fusilier (b.1985, Buenos Aires) is a multidisciplinary artist who explores the physicality of technology, notions of non-linear time, and post-human imaginaries at the intersections between organic and mechanical bodies, industrial and domestic settings. Her work takes various forms through moving image, painting, sound, and site-specific projects. Carolina Fusilier lives and works in Oaxaca, Mexico. She studied at the Universidad del Cine in Buenos Aires and completed postgraduate programs at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella (2011), SOMA in Mexico City (2016), and was a guest student at the Düsseldorf Academy under Rita McBride in 2018. Recent solo and duo exhibitions include Imago, Margot Samel, New York, NY (2025); ¿Cómo se escribe muerte al sur?, Museo Anahuacalli, Mexico City, Mexico (2025); Isla Eléctrica, PEANA, Mexico City, Mexico (2024); Nuit Blanche, Toronto, Canada (2024); Espejo-Espectro, MALBA, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2024); Corrientes Mercuriales, Museo Jumex, Mexico City, Mexico (2023); Clepsidra, Daniela Elbahara Gallery, Mexico City, Mexico (2021); Kitchen with a View, Locust Projects, Miami, FL (2019); and Angel Engines, Natalia Hug, Cologne, Germany (2018). Selected group exhibitions include Otr's Mund's, curated by Aram Moshayedi and Lena Solá Nogué, Museo Tamayo, Mexico City, Mexico (2025);Yendo de la cama al living, curated by Enrique Giner, Salón ACME, Mexico City, Mexico (2025); Breaking up of ice on a river, curated by Lilian Hiob, Margot Samel, New York, NY (2024); Casa Ideal, Proyectos Multipropósito, Mexico City, Mexico (2024); Linhas Tortas, Mendes Wood, São Paulo, Brazil (2023); Hic Sunt Dracones, Deli Gallery, Mexico City, Mexico (2023). Carolina Fusilier, Súbitamente (IMAGO station), 2025, Oil on hexagonal canvas, stainless steel and speaker. Audio by Miko Revereza., 90 1/2 x 157 1/2 x 2 in | 230 x 400 x 5 cm. photo by Matthew Sherman Carolina Fusilier, Altar II (Imago Lab), 2025 Oil on hexagonal canvas, stainless steel frame 35 3/8 x 25 5/8 in | 90 x 65 cm. photo by Matthew Sherman Carolina Fusilier, War song II, 2025, Oil on hexagonal canvas, 31 1/2 x 19 3/4 in | 80 x 50 cm. photo by Matthew Sherman

In this episode of the Artmatcher podcast, Meaghan Kent speaks to guest host Matt Wheatley about her insightful international journey through the arts, and her role as a curator at the acclaimed and vibrant Art and Culture Center Hollywood is discussed. As a curator, she provides emerging and established artists with opportunities to express their evolving creativity and voice through their works. The curated exhibitions at the center provide a balanced and emotional focus on important topics such as climate, sustainability, and diversity.About Meaghan KentMeaghan Kent is the Curator of Exhibitions at the Art and Culture Center Hollywood in Florida. She is the Founder of Site95, an organization that holds exhibitions in available spaces, including Locust Projects, Abrons Arts Center, and public outdoor spaces in Miami and New York. Kent was also a gallery director for the past fifteen years, where she managed the careers of internationally emerging and established artists and coordinated exhibitions locally and worldwide. She co-founded Páramo in Guadalajara, Mexico, and directed off-site projects at The Mistake Room in Los Angeles, Casa Pedregal in Mexico City, and El Museo de los Pintores Oaxaqueños in Oaxaca. Before Páramo, she worked at Casey Kaplan, Andrea Rosen Gallery, and I-20 in New York. Kent completed her MA in art history at George Washington University, Washington, DC, and her BA at the College of Santa Fe, New Mexico. She participated in Independent Curators International (ICI) Intensive in 2012 and was a mentor for the 2016 Liverpool Biennial Associate Artists Programme. Kent has written for several publications, including Site95 Journal, ArtHaps, and Art in America. Exhibitions have been reviewed in Frieze, The Washington Post, Washington City Paper, Gallery Monthly, The Miami Herald, and The New York Times.About ArtmatcherArtmatcher is a social community platform for art lovers, artists, galleries, museums, and events. It connects people with curated social communities, art experiences, and gamified education based on their interests and actions. Using a patent-pending machine learning model, Artmatcher builds a profile for users and recommends tailored content, including art, social experiences, and educational opportunities. Recommended LinksArt and Culture Center HollywoodMeaghan Kent on LinkedIn

Katie Bell is an artist originally from Rockford, Illinois (b.1985).  She received her BA from Knox College and her MFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design. Bell makes sculptural paintings based off architecture and found objects, fabricating forms that confuse naming. Using construction materials as her palette and woodworking tools as a form of mark making, she builds paintings and sculptures. Bell has shown her work at a variety of venues, including the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, Smack Mellon, Locust Projects, and the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum. She was an artist in residence at the Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation's Space Program and awarded a fellowship in painting by the New York Foundation for the Arts. Bell lives and works in New York, NY. Katie Bell, Day Shift, Wood, acrylic, plexiglass, paper, sand, rope, and nail, 34 x 26 x 4 inches, 2022. Katie Bell, Middy, Acrylic, wood, aluminum, and plexiglass, 31 x 22 x 4.5 inches, 2020. Katie Bell, Middy, Acrylic, wood, aluminum, and plexiglass, 31 x 22 x 4.5 inches, 2020.    

Portrait by Gabriella Marks Paula Wilson received an MFA from Columbia and a BFA from Washington University in St. Louis, MO. Alongside her current exhibition at Denny Dimin Gallery, she is currently exhibiting within a group exhibition Plein Air at MOCA Tucson and has an upcoming solo exhibition Toward the Sky's Back Door at The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs in 2023. She has also recently had an acquisition placed at Colby College Museum of Art. In addition, her upcoming Albuquerque Museum show: Nicola López and Paula Wilson: Becoming Land opens October 8th, 2022 and is part of a larger umbrella of shows titled: Historic and Contemporary Landscapes including work by Thomas Cole and Kiki Smith. Wilson's has held other recent solo exhibitions at Locust Projects, Miami, FL (2020-2021), 516 ARTS Contemporary Museum, Albuquerque, NM (2019), Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY (2018), and Denny Dimin Gallery, New York, NY (2018). She has been included in four exhibitions at the Studio Museum in Harlem, exhibitions at Tufts University Art Galleries (2021), Skidmore College (2015), Inside-Out Art Museum in Beijing (2014), Postmasters Gallery (2010), Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC (2010), Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (2009), Zacheta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw (2007), Sikkema Jenkins & Co. (2006), just to name a few.  Wilson's artwork is in many prestigious collections including, The Studio Museum in Harlem, the New York Public Library, Yale University, Saatchi Gallery, and The Fabric Workshop. Microhouse, 2022 Mixed Media. Courtesy of Paula Wilson and Denny Dimin Gallery Earth Angel, 2022 Acrylic and oil on muslin and canvas (relief, silkscreen, monotype, and lithography print), wooden and beaded jewelry made in collaboration with Mike Lagg. Courtesy of Paula Wilson and Denny Dimin Gallery Up My Sleeve, 2021 Acrylic on muslin and canvas (woodblock, relief, monotype, silkscreen, collagraph, and digital print) Courtesy of Paula Wilson and Denny Dimin Gallery

Ep.112 features BETHANY COLLINS (b. 1984 Montgomery, AL). She lives and works in Chicago, IL. Collins is a multidisciplinary artist whose conceptually driven work is fueled by a critical exploration of how race and language interact. Collins received an MFA from Georgia State University in Atlanta GA, and a BA from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, AL. Recent solo exhibitions include: Cadence (2022), PATRON, Chicago, IL; America: A Hymnal (2021), Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AK; Evensong (2021) Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN; My destiny is in your hands (2021), Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, AL; Chorus (2019), Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, St Louis, MO; Benediction (2019) The University of Kentucky Art Museum, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY; A Pattern or Practice (2019), University Galleries of Illinois State University, Normal, IL; The Birmingham News 1963 (2018-2019), Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago IL; The Litany, Locust Projects (2018), Miami, FL; Undersong (2018), PATRON, Chicago IL; and Occasional Verse (2018), The Center for Book Arts, New York, NY. Image courtesy of the artist and PATRON Gallery, Chicago. Photography by Evan Jenkins Additional information~ Artist https://bethanyjoycollins.com/home.html Patron Gallery https://patrongallery.com/exhibition/285/cadence https://patrongallery.com/artist/bethanycollins Montgomery Museum of Fine Art Bethany Collins - MMFA Brooklyn Rail https://brooklynrail.org/2022/02/artseen/Seize-the-Time WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/collectors-eye-they-built-a-world-class-collection-of-black-artists-work-who-are-they-acquiring-now-11594828483 Artspace https://www.artspace.com/artist/bethany-collins Richard Gray Gallery Bethany Collins - Artists - Richard Gray Gallery Block Museum https://www.blockmuseum.northwestern.edu/events/2022/artist-talk-laylah-ali-and-bethany-collins.html Chicago Gallery https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/events/bethany-collins-cadence Crystal Bridges https://crystalbridges.org/calendar/bethany-collins-america-a-hymnal/ Frist Art Museum https://fristartmuseum.org/exhibition/bethany-collins-evensong/ https://burnaway.org/daily/collins-frist/ The Phillips Collection https://www.phillipscollection.org/event/2021-06-25-jacob-lawrence-american-struggle Speed Art Museum https://www.promisewitnessremembrance.org/ Art in America https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/aia-reviews/breonna-taylor-promise-witness-remembrance-speed-art-museum-1234594195/ Hyperallergic https://hyperallergic.com/641634/amy-sherald-bearing-witness-to-breonna-taylor-life-and-death/ NYTimes https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/11/arts/design/breonna-taylor-review-museum-louisville.html PBS https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/what-breonna-taylors-name-and-image-is-teaching-america-about-black-lives The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/apr/01/remembering-breonna-taylor-through-art-it-keeps-her-alive Artforum https://www.artforum.com/print/reviews/202202/the-dirty-south-contemporary-art-material-culture-and-the-sonic-impulse-87629 Smart Museum https://smartmuseum.uchicago.edu/exhibitions/take-care/ Renaissance Society https://renaissancesociety.org/exhibitions/540/nine-lives/ Hirshhorn https://hirshhorn.si.edu/explore/bethany-collins-part-1-hirshhorn-artist-diaries-2/

Nadia Hironaka & Matthew Suib's 'Field Companion' is a mycology-inspired immersive film experience where relationships-- mutualistic, parasitic, or otherwise-- reign supreme. Themes of community, mixed with the collaged nature of the work, result in a poignant but disorienting exhibition that is certainly fitting of this pandemic time. On view at Locust Projects, Miami thru Feb. 5, 2022.

In this episode of The Artist Business Plan, we sit down with Alexander Zastera aka The Climate Crusader to discuss artistic ways to problem solve important issues. If you check yourself and your impact, be open to participate as much as. you can, and use art as activism, you will align yourself as the missing link and thrive. Guest: Alexander Zastera is known for their dark mystical paintings, found object installation and public performance centered around the environment.  Zastera graduated with a BFA in Studio art and BA in art history from Florida State University. Based in Miami Beach, Florida, working as an artist, activist, and educator they use their studio work and interest in public education to address local ecological issues. They have been a resident artist in the Miami Dade Library system with ProjectArt USA and their work has been featured at Deep Space Gallery, & Gallery, Locust Projects, PAMM, MOCA Nomi, and Superfine! Art Fair: NYC. Currently Zastera gallivants in a masked guise of the superhero “Climate Crusader," a South Florida based environmental superhero building climate resilience and awareness through videos, public performance, and inspiring community action to save the planet. https://www.alexanderzastera.com/ (https://www.alexanderzastera.com/) and http://www.climatecrusader.com (www.climatecrusader.com)   For more information on applying to Superfine Art Fair as well as recordings of this and all of our past podcasts, just visit http://www.superfine.world/ (www.superfine.world ) IG: https://www.instagram.com/superfineartfair/?hl=en (@superfineartfair) IG: https://www.instagram.com/zastera/ (@zastera ) | https://www.instagram.com/climate.crusader/ (@climate.crusader) If you want to submit a listener question you can email it to kelsey@superfine.world for a chance of it being answered by Alex, James, and our guest! Hosted and Executive Produced by James Miille and Alexander Mitow Executive Producer/Producer : Kelsey Susino Written by: Kelsey Susino, Alexander Mitow, and James Miille Audio Edited by: Federico Solar Fernandez

In 2019, we recorded the first part of this story about the history of Miami's contemporary art scene inside Locust Projects, the longest running alternative art space in the city. Locust Projects director Lorie Mertes and artists from a collaborative known as FeCuOp—Jason Ferguson, Christian Curiel, Brandon Opalka, and Victor Villafañe, remember the raw energy of the 1990s. When we meet, the collective is in the midst of building out an immersive environment for Antenna, their first major project in Miami since 2003. The performative and interactive installation aimed to create a social experiment around communication. In early 2021, we reach out to FeCuOp to talk about how much has changed since they collaborated on the highly interactive, live, and in-person experience at Locust Projects. Only months after they realized Antenna, the global coronavirus pandemic shut down the world for most of a year, profoundly altering how we encounter art. Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Sound featured with permission of FeCuOp  Related Episodes: Where Art Meets Sand and Social Behavior, The BLCK Family of Miami on Collective Creativity Related Links: Locust Projects, FeCuOp, Christian Curiel, Jason Ferguson, Brandon Opalka, Victor Villafañe, Miami Light Project FeCuOp is a contemporary art collaborative established in Miami in 1997, by Jason Ferguson, born in Trinidad and Tobago, lives in South Carolina; Christian Curiel, born in Puerto Rico to Cuban parents, lives in New Haven, CT; Brandon Opalka, born in Virginia, lives in Colorado. The name constitutes an amalgam of the three founding artist’s names. FeCuOp along with new Miami-based member Victor Villafañe, are like the periodic table of elements; each member’s unique characteristics bring a unique variable property to every collaboration.   Locust Projects is an alternative art space founded by artists for artists in 1998. The arts incubator produces, presents, and nurtures ambitious and experimental new art and the exchange of ideas through commissioned exhibitions and projects, artist residencies, summer art intensives for teens, and public programs on contemporary art and curatorial practice.

We're excited to say good riddance to 2020, and even more excited for our Season 3 finale guest, Shikeith!!! Shikeith is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work investigates the experiences of black men within and around concepts of psychic space. His work has recently been featured in solo exhibitions including the Alexander Brest Museum & Gallery, Jacksonville University, Locust Projects in Miami, FL, Atlanta Contemporary, and The Mattress Factory Museum of Contemporary Art in Pittsburgh, and his films have been shown at Moma in NYC. He received a 2019 Painters & Sculptors Grant from The Joan Mitchell Foundation, the 2020 Art Matters Foundation Grant, is a recipient of the 2020 – 2021 Leslie Lohman Museum Artist Fellowship. A Philly native, Shikeith currently lives and works in Pittsburgh, PA, and joins us today from his artist residency at Fountainhead in Miami, FL. We learn more about the deep and intentional symbolism and meaning behind his work and the materials that go into his work, the themes and intersections of blackness, masculinity, and queerness, we discuss specific installations, photographs, and films, and hear about his upcoming exhibitions! (see show links below)Thank you for listening to The Queer Creative in 2020. We hope you've enjoyed listening, and hope you will leave us a rating and review! We thank you for your support! Check us out on Instagram @TheQueerCreativePodcast, on Twitter @CreativeQueer, and on YouTube by searching The Queer Creative. SHOW LINKS:Shikeith's website: https://shikeith.comTwitter: @shikeithism / https://twitter.com/shikeithism"Feeling the Spirit in the Dark" exhibition at The Mattress Factory: https://mattress.org/works/feeling-the-spirit-in-the-dark/Stream Shikeith's latest film, "A Drop of Sun Under the Earth," on the Criterion Collection: https://www.criterionchannel.com/a-drop-of-sun-under-the-earth

In today’s prologue to our Fall 2020 Student Edition, University of Miami senior Melissa Huberman tells the story of Art in the Time of Corona. She recorded with Fresh Art International founder Cathy Byrd, local artist Dana Musso, and team members from the Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach, to find out how some artists, curators, and educators are responding to the impact of the global coronavirus pandemic. Listen to hear some of the ways they are creating and implementing meaningful art encounters for their communities.    The Story Behind The Story In 2020, hundreds of thousands of people across the United States and around the world have been sickened and forced into quarantine by the novel coronavirus, also known as COVID-19. The pandemic continues to affect us profoundly—both physically and economically. All of us have had to adjust how we live and work, teach and learn.    In January 2020, Fresh Art founder Cathy Byrd began to introduce a group of University of Miami students to podcasting in a course titled Once Upon a Time in Miami. With Byrd, a team of nine students explored cultural sites across the city to record and produce the Miami Moves Me podcast. Due to the pandemic, at mid-semester, field expeditions came to an abrupt halt and classes went online. A set of eighteen episodes represents the UM student team’s research, field recordings, and interviews. Art in the Time of Corona is the prologue to our Fall 2020 Student Edition.    Producers: Melissa Huberman/Miami Moves Me, Giselle Heraux and Jahné King/FreshArtINTL Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio   Featured Voices: Cathy Byrd, Dana Musso, Leilani Lynch, Julia Rudo, Kylee Crook   Related Episodes: Miami Moves Me/Art in the Time of Corona, Fresh Voices Miami Related Links: Miami Moves Me, Fresh Art Distance Learning Resources, Fresh Art Student Edition, Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, Locust Projects, Pérez Art Museum Miami, Bass Museum of Art, Lowe Art Museum

Amanda Sanfilippo Long would like to acknowledge the following correction: towards the end, she mentions the “High Line” as an exciting upcoming project coming up for Miami-Dade County, she meant to refer to the project as Miami’s “Underline”, which is a similar project to New York’s High Line, both projects designed by James Corner Field Operations. www.theunderline.org Amanda Sanfilippo Long is the Curator & Artist Manager of Art in Public Places, Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs. One of the first public art programs in the country (est. 1973), 1.5% of public land construction costs are allocated for the purchase or commission of artworks. With over 700 works of art in the collection, the program has gained international recognition. Amanda is the Director of the South Florida Cultural Consortium, and the Executive Director and Chief Curator of Fringe Projects. Amanda initiated and directed Art in Public Places’ co-presentation of the Creative Time Summit Miami, 2018. Amanda has held positions at Locust Projects, Miami, FL; Creative Time, New York, NY; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; and the BCA Center, Burlington, VT. She holds an MA in Contemporary Art History, Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London; BA in Art History, University of Vermont. https://miamidadepublicart.org/ http://www.fringeprojectsmiami.com/

About Avra Jain With a career path that has taken her from bond trading on Wall Street to developing properties along some of Miami's trendiest streets, Avra Jain has earned a reputation for identifying the next it neighborhood. The recipient of three Sundance Film Awards for the documentary Dark Days, this industrial engineering graduate from Purdue University develops projects based around two of her favorite pursuits: art and architecture. Jain suggests “Through art and architecture, life and lifestyle are integrated. Through life and lifestyle, communities and neighborhoods are created.” To date, that vision has resulted in numerous boutique projects that range from converting a 100,000-square foot warehouse to luxury loft condominiums in New York's Tribeca neighborhood to the remake of The Vagabond, from Motel to Hotel on Biscayne Boulevard. When Avra is not re-imagining skylines, she spends time with her 13-year-old daughter Alexandra, whom she affectionately refers to as "my greatest accomplishment". Some of her most recent recognitions include: Urban Environment Leaders “2014 Orchid Award for Historic Revitalization”, Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce R.E.A.L. “2015 Winner of Developer Commercial Category”, the Women’s Chamber of Commerce “15th Thelma Gibson Award of Excellence”, the AIA Miami “Developer of the Year 2016”, and the "2017 Community Catalyst Award", amongst others. Avra serves on the Miami Foundation Board, Dade Heritage Trust, Locust Projects, and University of Miami's Master of Real Estate Development + Urbanism Advisory Boards. Visit Urblandia.com for more updates. A place for impact entrepreneurs and local community builders. Also, check out Night Young Music for the tracks featured in this episode.

Nicole Maynard-Sahar is an artist-in-residence at the Bakehouse Art Complex in the Wynwood Arts District of Miami. She most recently participated in the official studio tour of Art Basel Miami, Smash and Grab at Locust Projects, La Pinta Art Fair, Between the Legible and the Opaque: Approaches to an Ideal in Place curated by Adler Guerrier (on view through March 31, 2020), and New Work at the Bakehouse Art Complex curated by Justin Long. She earned awards at the University of Pennsylvania for painting and color theory. Originally from Boston, Maynard-Sahar relocated to Miami in June 2017. https://maynardsahar.com/

In November 2019, Houston-based artist Trenton Doyle Hancock brings his mythological “Moundverse” to Miami. Locust Projects gives over the entire space to his site-specific installation. The artist will immerse us in a world inspired by comic books, toys, horror films and animations. For decades, Hancock has been telling the story of the Mounds (gentle hybrid plant-like creatures) protected by Torpedo Boy (Hancock’s alter ego), and their enemies, the Vegans (mutants who consume tofu and spill Mound blood every chance they get). In paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, video and installation, the artist explores good and evil, authority, race and class, moral relativism, politics and religion. This is not our first encounter with Trenton Doyle Hancock. He was among artists that curator Valerie Cassel Oliver selected for Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art. The exhibition premiered in 2013 at the Museum of Contemporary Arts, Houston, and traveled across the United States. In Radical Presence, Cassel Oliver surveyed seminal black performance art. She invited artists into the exhibition to re-stage their performances. We make our way to Houston to watch Hancock embody one of the characters in the narrative he began creating when he was 10 years old. For an evening performance titled “Devotion,” he becomes a singing Mound. He's massive. He's blindfolded. Cassel Oliver feeds him Jell-O. The spectacle is intimate, absurd and deeply spiritual. The next morning, we wander through the artist’s mind. Our conversation explores the histories, objects and ideas that inform his work. His warehouse is awash in accumulating materials—cast-off toys, books and bottle caps, scraps of felt and fabric, cans of paint. Works in progress and finished collage paintings line the walls. A drum kit sits waiting in one corner. It seems unlikely that this artist will ever lose the desire to experiment and play with the fantastical characters that animate his inner world.  Sound Editor: 2019 Anamnesis Audio; 2013 Eric Schwartz | Special Audio: Trenton Doyle Hancock Related Episodes: Valerie Cassel Oliver on Black Performance in Contemporary Art, Tameka Norris on Channeling Personal History, William Pope.L Transforms the Black Factory into a Magic Lantern Show Related Links: Locust Projects, Trenton Doyle Hancock at MASS MoCA, Radical Presence: Contemporary Black Performance Art

After graduating from Florida International University with a bachelors in photography, Monica began collaborating with her sister on videos, large-scale installations, performance art, clothing, VJ sets, and fanzines. A video piece at Bas Fischer International that featured 35 local artists passing on "creative energy" to each other gained the attention of critics. Since then, TM Sisters work has been featured in the second Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art and at Performa07 in New York. Locust Projects selected the pair from an applicant pool of 72 artists to receive the Hilger Artist Project Award. They were also included in the international exhibition "Uncertain States of America: American Art in the 3rd Millennium" curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Daniel Birnbaum, and Gunnar B. Kvaran (Miami New Times). https://www.instagram.com/monicatronica

Leo Castaneda and Lauren Monzon make a hyper-harmonious personal and professional partnership. From Carrollton School to Columbia University and Cooper Union to Hunter College, then to Locust Projects, to Oolite Arts, to Borscht Corp. - listen and learn what magic Miami conjures to hold on to these two!

Just in time their "Kaelidoscopic Spring Fling” to take place tomorrow from 7pm-10pm at the Miami Design District’s Moore Building, Lori Mertes, Executive Director of the Locust Projects, talks about the 20 year long journey of Miami’s foremost incubator of new art and ideas, a non-profit organization that has empowered artists to experiment, take risks and push the boundaries of what visual art is and can be. “Art happens here” is what they stand for and Locust remains committed to its ideals, a place that empowers artists dedicated to commissioning ambitious, site-specific, temporary installations. For more information on the event visit locustprojects.org.

The leading ladies of alternative spaces in Miami chat with Art & Company. Lorie Mertes of Locust Projects and Beth Boone of Miami Light Projects share the stories of their own struggles and successes and the inspiration that got them where they are today.

How do you define yourself? Is it limiting to try? Should you stick to one interest and run with it, or do as much as you can? How do you know which opportunities are worth pursuing?We entertain these questions with Willie Avendano, while discussing how he fell into co-founding 01 in Miami’s Wynwood Arts District, a prototyping lab and studio for new educational ideas and products in technology and gaming.Willie has a range of interests and creative pursuits including virtual reality, artificial intelligence, education, art and music. As a new media artist, Willie has exhibited video & sound work at &gallery, Locust Projects and the Institute of Contemporary Art and DJs under monikers Yung Algebra and Drake Tears. He graduated from Columbia University in Operations Research and Computer Science.

In 2018, Locust Projects invited the Detroit-based design duo known as root of two to bring three headless chickens to roost in Miami. For six months, Cezanne Charles and John Marshall embellish the Magic City skyline with their public art and digital engagement project. Previously presented in France and the United Kingdom, Whithervanes translate the traditional weathervane into a 21st century radio transmitter. Mounted on rooftops in downtown, the Design District and Biscayne Boulevard, the four-foot tall birds change colors and direction in response to the climate of fear propagated by the media. These are tech-savvy chickens. They scan the Internet for alarmist keywords, collecting information on topics from violence to economic crises to natural disasters. You can follow their “neurotic, early worrying system”, or N.E.W.S. on the Whithervanes Twitter account. Connecting art with streaming social media and news technology, Whithervane designers Cezanne Charles and John Marshall invite us to think about the emotional impact of the digital information that controls our view of the world. Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Photographs courtesy root of two and Locust Projects Related episodes: Art of the Everyday, Art and the Rising Sea, Report from Miami Art Week 2017

Katie Bell is an artist born in Rockford, Illinois living and working in New York City. She recieved her BA from Knox College in Illinois and her MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. She has had solo shows at venues such as Okay Mountain Gallery in Austin, Texas, Backspace in Peoria, Illinois, Lipscomb University in Nashville, Mixed Greens in New York, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Penn State, Drew Univeristy, Locust Projects in Miami among others. Her group shows include Circuit 12 in Dallas, LVL3 in Chicago, Launch F18 in NYC, the Soho House in New York, Spring Break Art Show, Transmitter, Brooklyn, Rockford University, the Royal College of Art and many others. Katie has received a NYFA Fellowship a Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation Space and she has taught as a visiting critic at North Texas, RISD, Denison Univeristy, Knox College, and many other schools. Her work has been covered in Art F City, Two Coats of Paint, Paper Magazine, Art News, Artinfo, Vulture, Maake Magazine and many other publications. Brian stopped by Katie’s East Village studio and they spoke about her days growing up as a twin, endless renovations, art school, getting your foot in the door and dancing to bachata.

Alexander Zastera produces vibrating planetary portals, swirling masses of denim, dark urban landscapes, and tropical “grotesquery” in response to the dynamic and bizarre environments he calls home. Currently based in Miami, his work has been featured in Deep Space, & Gallery, Locust Projects, the Young Arts Gallery, the FSU Museum of Fine Arts, and Superfine! Art Fair: NYC. https://www.alexzastera.com/

Artist Alexis Gideon talks about myth and memory in his newest animated video opera: The Comet and The Glacier. He brings this musical narrative to life at Locust Projects, Miami, Florida. Gideon's intense multi-media environmental installation takes visitors on a journey into his imagination and serves as the stage for his performances during Miami Art Week 2016. Sound Editor: Guney Ozsan | Sound effects courtesy Alexis Gideon

This week: Artist and videographer Jillian Mayer! Born in 1984 in Miami, the artist and filmmaker Jillian Mayer lives in South Florida. Her work has been shown at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City (2014); Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando, FL (2014); Locust Projects, Miami (2013); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2013); Bass Museum of Art, Miami (2012); and World Class Boxing, Miami (2012). Her video Scenic Jogging was one of the 25 selections for the Guggenheim’s YouTube Play: A Biennial of Creative Video and was exhibited at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy; Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain; and Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin (2010). Her videos have also been shown at the Rotterdam Film Festival (2014); Sundance Film Festival (2012, 2013); SXSW, Austin, TX (2012, 2013); and New York Film Festival (2013). A recipient of the Sundance Institute New Frontier Story Lab Fellowship (2013); the Zentrum Paul Klee Fellowship, Berne, Switzerland (2013); the Cintas Foundation Fellowship, New York (2012); and the NEA Southern Constellation Fellowship at Elsewhere Museum, Greensboro, NC, Mayer was included in the “25 New Faces of Independent Film” by Filmmaker Magazine (2012). She was recently featured on the cover of ART PAPERS. Mayer is represented by David Castillo Gallery, Miami.