The second and final phase of Provisional Obstruction (Little Haiti II) will unveil and celebrate the work of community collaborators in dialogue with the initial installation, projecting their desires for the future of the surrounding neighborhood. As a culmination of the work done together, the final installation will be open to view till September 18, 2022.
Ayesha Singh
Ayesha Singh’s (1990, lives in New Delhi) practice involves subversive actions that highlight socio-political hierarchies and the assertion of established systems of power in architecture. Video, sculpture, installation, performance and drawings create sites of discourse and record, to question the assumed permanence of buildings and the histories omitted during construction, restoration and destruction. The works aim to flip these narratives through critical spatial interventions that emphasize collaboration and coexistence.
Singh has exhibited solo and group shows at Palazzo Madama – Museo Civico d’Arte Antica, Turin, Italy; Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Austria; Yorkshire Sculpture Park, UK; Museum of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, Chongqing, China; Sculpture Park Jaipur, Nahargarh Fort, Rajasthan, India; and University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK, to name a few. Singh was awarded the Emerging Artist of the Year award from India Today (2020); the Ellies Creator Award from Oolite Arts (former Art Centre/South Florida), USA (2018-19); the Civil Society Institute Fellowship at Vermont Studio Centre, USA (2018); and the Science & Culture Initiative Grant from the University of Chicago and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2017-18). Her work has been published in Art Review, Hyperallergic, Architectural Digest, Art India, Burnaway, Public Parking, Domus, and Stir to name a few. Her work is a part of notable public collections including the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, UK; The Burger Collection, Hong Kong; and the Partition Museum, Amritsar, India.
In a country with little to no governmental or institutional support for the arts and with limited opportunities, Singh is determined to create spaces for community interaction, alternative methods of knowledge-sharing, and guidance. She is the co-founder of Art Chain India- a peer-support movement for visual artists living and working in India that is driven by the potential for localized assistances and commonalities to create global solidarities within artist communities, to challenge opacities within which systemic hierarchies thrive. This is a movement that seeks to exist beyond the uncertainties of today, to cultivate a politics of autonomy and collaboration, and to de-center conversation, economy and resources.
misael soto
misael soto’s practice interrogates and subverts contextually associated everyday objects and systemic roles, disrupting and manipulating space, systems, and frameworks. The publicly accessible, time-based, and ephemeral work involves interventions made upon existing objects, performative activations, institutional mediations, and is often a combination of these elements. Pointing to truths found within the equivocal and disturbing presumed permanence are foundational goals. The novelty and uncanny nature of these situations, and the vulnerability asked from viewers, aligns their attention with the present and reveals circumstantial actualities leading to dialogue around critical contemporary concerns.
Born in Puerto Rico (1986) and based in Miami, misael received their MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2018) and graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor’s Degree in Art History from Florida Atlantic University (2008). misael was the first ever Art in Public Life Resident with the City of Miami Beach’s Department of Environment and Sustainability and Oolite Arts, where they founded the Department of Reflection. Beyond their public artworks which they have shown extensively for many years, misael has exhibited at MCA Chicago, Open Engagement 2015, the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami, Material Art Fair in Mexico City, David Castillo Gallery in Miami, and Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale, amongst others. misael is a studio artist at Dimensions Variable and has participated in Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts’ Fall 2020 Residency Program in Omaha, NE, The Fountainhead Residency in Miami, FL, the ACRE Residency Program in Steuben, WI, and HomeBase Project’s HB Build Artist-in-Residence program in Berlin, and will participate in the Heat Exchange, Exchange program with BFI Miami and Rogaland Kunstsenter in Stavanger, Norway, and Santa Fe Art Institute’s residency.