2019
Saturday, September 14, 2019, 2 - 6pm
Ribbon Cutting Ceremony and Opening Event
Join us for the opening of its main office via a ribbon cutting ceremony with Vice Mayor Ricky Arriola and a special presentation by invited guest the Institute of Queer Ecology!
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The Department of Reflection in its pursuit to encourage deeper and more meaningful contemplation and speculation of the City of Miami Beach, its residents, and its place in the world has invited the prominent national organization the Institute of Queer Ecology (IQECO) for a special visit and review. IQECO is a collaborative organism looking to find and create alternatives. They believe the solutions to environmental degradation are found on the periphery and seek to bring them to the forefront of public consciousness. Guided by queer and feminist theory and decolonial thinking, IQECO works to undo dangerously destructive human-centric hierarchies—or even flip them—to look at the critical importance of things happening invisibly; underground and out of sight.
On this visit to Miami Beach, IQECO will install a temporary reading room for their hybridized publication project Common Survival, which is an unbound collection of 33 objects made by over 40 artists based in 7 countries. Work was selected by an open call for projects that presented survival strategies for folx and creatures alike living in an uncertain climate. Using this work as a departure point, The Institute of Queer Ecology will lead discussions with residents and Department of Reflection staff, after which they will give their recommendations to the city.
Photo Credit: Juan Matos.
Photo Credit: Juan Matos.
Wednesday, September 25, 6 - 9pm
BFI @ DoR
A talk with Hayden Dunham and Katerina Llanes
in partnership with the Bass Museum of Art's OVERTIME #attheBass
6:30 PM – Meditation (Bass Museum)
7 PM – Talk (DoR Main Office)
8 PM – Reception (Bass Museum)
Join us as we host the Bas Fisher Invitational (BFI) who will lead us into the end of summer with a full-body reset. The evening features Hydra’s Rain, a multi-sensory and participatory meditation guided by artist Hayden Dunham to take place at the Bass Museum of Art, where the audience will be bathed in sound within the museum.
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At 7 PM, Naomi Fisher, artist and director of BFI, and Katherine Fleming, founder of Bridge Initiative, will host a conversation on the ecologically-focused collaboration between artists Hayden Dunham and Katerina Llanes, discussing their upcoming exhibition with BFI, IN: the serpent :TO (Hydra’s Rain), opening September 28.
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$10 | FREE for members Purchase tickets/RSVP: thebass.org/overtime
Sunday, September 29, 2019, 2 - 4pm
Special Sunday Presentation
The Department of Reflection, in its belief that a greater understanding and reexamination of our individual and communal regional histories can act as a guiding force for decision making in our immediate future, has invited Sasha Wortzel and Archival Feedback to share their excavating research-based work with Miami Beach Residents. We've also asked Mie Frederikke Fischer Christensen to revisit her work with us from a year ago.
This special Sunday presentation within our office coincides with the City of Miami Beach's Artscape Concert Series in Collins Park, as well as the final day of the Bass Museum's Free Day.
We encourage you to use public transportation to reach us.
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Archival Feedback performing "They Could Not Proceed Forward, But Backward and It Seems That They Were Proceeding Well" Photo Credit: Juan Matos
Sasha Wortzel performing "Hurricane Season" Photo Credit: Juan Matos
Photo Credit: Juan Matos
Archival Feedback performing "They Could Not Proceed Forward, But Backward and It Seems That They Were Proceeding Well" Photo Credit: Juan Matos
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Mie Frederikke Fischer Christensen will revisit her video Sand Soldier Sirene, presenting here a new iteration of the work with a live component. Frederikke is a Danish-born interdisciplinary artist currently based in Copenhagen. Emerging from an interest in history and pop culture's ability to reinforce social constructs and influence the way we perceive our reality, her work plays with layers of fact, fiction, and reenactment, and use well- known cultural tropes as a familiar, uncanny narrative entry point.
Sasha Wortzel will present Hurricane Season. Sasha Wortzel is an artist and filmmaker working between New York City and Miami. Blending documentary and narrative forms, her films, installations, and performances explore how structures of power shape our lives around race, gender, desire, and landscape.
Archival Feedback will perform They Could Not Proceed Forward, But Backward and It Seems That They Were Proceeding Well. Archival Feedback is an experimental sound art duo/collective based in Miami, FL, comprised of Emile Milgrim and T. Wheeler Castillo. Engaged in various critical dialogues of the moment, the environment is approached as a studio in the field, accessing the landscape through the soundscape. A limited run of cassette tapes of Archival Feedback's recordings made in conjunction with and supported by the Department of Reflection will be made available for purchase.
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Elite Kedan is an artist and registered architect based in Miami. Her combined work explores how technology and production methods intersect with human behavior, public space, historical context and meaning. She is currently a resident artist at ArtCenter/South Florida and is co-founder and member of the collaborative (Alliance of the Southern Triangle), an initiative exploring how artistic and cultural possibilities can be reimagined in light of climate change and political volatility by leveraging the dynamics already in process.
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Nicole Salcedo will guide visitors through a workshop titled Befriending Mangroves.
Mangroves were chosen because of their significance to the historical landscape of Miami Beach and their key role in the protection of Miami's shoreline and its many of its sea life. Participants will be given a series of exercises in order to feel and know the mangroves on a deeper level. Nicole is a first-generation Cuban-American artist born, raised, and based in Miami. Her practice includes the use of illustration to open up spiritual pathways that might heal our connection to ourselves and to Nature.
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Nathaniel Sandler is a Miami-based writer, and co-founder and head librarian of the Bookleggers Mobile Library, serving Miami with free books on a monthly basis at literary events throughout the city. He is a graduate of Vassar College, where he received a B.A. in Asian Studies. He spent two years living in Japan and teaching English. A lot of his current writing focuses on collections based object analysis, from South Florida museums, such a The Curious Vault at the Miami Science Museum. Currently, in addition to the Miami Science Museum, he writes for the University of Miami Special Collections Library, the Miami Rail, ArtSlant, Red Flag Magazine, Where Magazine and many others. He owns a canoe and is terrible at softball.
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Realie B. Taimond will present their Propuesta a la Ciudad de Miami Beach para la Zonificación Municipal de Bienes Inmuebles Ideológicos. Taimond es un empresario y especialista en el mercado de intercambio de futuros ideal. Se retiró de su trabajo de ingeniero principal y financiero de la Bolsa de Valores de Suenos de Futuro en el Art Institute de Chicago en 2015, y se mudó a Miami para trabajar en la industria menos estresante de Bienes Inmuebles Idealógica. Ahora dirige su propia empresa pública (Ideal Futures Real Estate™) con el objetivo eventual de zonificar ideológicamente las ciudades de Miami y Miami Beach.
Saturday, October 12, 2019, 2 - 6pm
Please join us at Reflection's Main Office for our next set of programming this Saturday. Look over the schedule below and come to what interests you or join us for the full afternoon.
2:30pm - Befriending Mangroves Workshop
Nicole Salcedo will guide visitors through a workshop which will begin at our Main Offices and includes a short walk to mangroves in the area. Mangroves were chosen because of their significance to the historical landscape of Miami Beach, and their key role in the protection of Miami's shoreline and sea life. Participants will be given a series of exercises in order to feel and know mangroves on a deeper level.
4pm - Public Meeting
The Department of Reflection concerns itself deeply with the uncertain and oftentimes perplexing ways private interests influence public policy, but also realizes the various and intersecting systems we all currently live in. With this in mind, we’ve invited Elite Kedan and R. Borealis Taimond (aka Bow Ty) to present their important and critical specializations with Miami Beach Residents. Public input is requested.
5:30 - Public Service Bronouncement
Continuing a line of inquiry and exchange begun a year ago, we've invited Nathaniel Sandler to create a second new piece of fiction inspired by an archival photograph. In this instance the photograph, taken in 1955, stood out when looking through Sandler's personal archives as the circular raft at the center of the image reminded us of the shape of our current Main Office building. It confronts us with a perplexing mix of a familiar set of ingredients, including 18 (white) men inside of the inflatable, all with Miami's classic 50's skyline in the background.
Nicole Salcedo leading participants through her "Befriending Mangroves" workshop.
Nicole Salcedo leading participants through her "Befriending Mangroves" workshop. Photo Credit: James Jackman
Realie B. Taimond presenting their "Propuesta a la Ciudad de Miami Beach para la Zonificación Municipal de Bienes Inmuebles Ideológicos"
Nicole Salcedo leading participants through her "Befriending Mangroves" workshop.
Tom Scicluna: Public Structure
A group of recently decommissioned City of Miami Beach submersible saltwater pumps are presented as an imposing ready-made public sculpture. Part abstract infrastructure, part documentary object/s, the formerly invisible and heavily corroded submersibles physically make real, and very much present, the immediate material and infrastructural effects of sea level rise upon the given Miami Beach environment.
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Public Structure was on public view, just outside of the Department of Reflection's Main Office on the lawn in Collins Park. Public Structure is realized in conjunction with the City of Miami Beach Public Works Department.
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Tom Scicluna is an artist and registered architect based in Miami. Her combined work explores how technology and production methods intersect with human behavior, public space, historical context and meaning. She is currently a resident artist at ArtCenter/South Florida and is co-founder and member of the collaborative (Alliance of the Southern Triangle), an initiative exploring how artistic and cultural possibilities can be reimagined in light of climate change and political volatility by leveraging the dynamics already in process.
Decommissioned submersible saltwater pumps at City of Miami Beach's Public Works yard.
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This special Thursday presentation coincides with Miami Beach's Culture Crawl.
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Dan Gelber is an American politician, ex-prosecutor, and the current mayor of Miami Beach, Florida. He served in the Florida Legislature from 2000 to 2010 and was the Democratic nominee for Attorney General of Florida in 2010.
Bookleggers is a nonprofit, mobile community library with the mission to permeate Miami with books. Through public access points, programming, and installations that place books in unexpected spaces, Bookleggers creates dynamic participatory experiences that increase book access and serve as a conduit for community exchange.
Thursday, October 17, 2019, 6 - 8pm
Office Hoops Tournament &
Parks and Recreation Marathon
with Mayor Dan Gelber and Bookleggers
Please join the Department of Reflection as we host, together with Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber, an office hoops tournament followed by a curated marathon of everyone's favorite municipal parody Parks and Recreation. Come hang out with your Mayor in a relaxed and fun environment! Bookleggers will be on site ​with a special selection of free books.
Bookleggers at the Department of Reflection
Bookleggers at the Department of Reflection
Saturday, October 26, 2019, 2 - 6pm
The Department of Reflection invites you to celebrate the final week at its current location. Look over the schedule below and come to what interests you or join us for the afternoon.
2pm - Creative Lobbying
Jenna Balfe's workshop will utilize different techniques including, writing, vocalization, dance improv, storytelling and performance to explore the possibility of using movement as a means of lobbying for various political and institutional change. Please wear comfortable clothing and bring a journal.
3pm - Looking at a Mirror in the Dark and Seeing an Insect There
In a new text written for the closing of the Department of Reflection's current Main Office, Willy Smart ponders the relation between instinct and intelligence, insects and mirrors. What is on the other side of the mirror and how do we get there? The answer to both questions is insects. Read Looking at a Mirror in the Dark and Seeing an Insect There.
3:30pm - Hourglass
Rob Goyanes' Hourglass is a work of fiction set in North Beach. The short story will be read by Dana Bassett, a longtime friend and artistic collaborator.
Listen to Goyanes read Hourglass:
5pm - El Ritual del Sancocho
Enjoy a warm communal meal organized by Julian Pardo. An exploration of the Latinx Sancocho, we'll have a conversation about how food brings us together and relates to the geo-political issues of our time.
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Jenna Balfe is an active dancer, musician, performance artist and teacher in Miami, Florida. Balfe has a Master of Science degree in Dance Movement Therapy from Pratt Institute, New York. She is the lead singer of the performance art no wave band DONZII and teaches a creative movement class called Bodymovement at different locations in the community.
Dana Bassett is a writer, producer, talker, listener, and itinerant host of the podcast Bad at Sports. Born in Miami, Florida, she currently lives in Chicago.
Rob Goyanes is a writer and musician from Miami, Florida, living in Ridgewood, Queens. His fiction has been published by RUINS Press, Contemporary Art Stavanger, and Asocial Media. His art criticism has been criticized in The New Yorker.
Julian Pardo is a multidisciplinary artist based in Miami who uses photography, ceramics and repurposed materials such furniture, lamps and glass.
Willy Smart is an artist who works in presentational and propositional forms. Willy makes lectures, sculpture, and publications that propose extended modes and objects of reading and recording. Willy directs the conceptual record label Fake Music (fakemusic.org).
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Julian Pardo preparing for El Ritual del Sancocho. Photo Credit: Juan Matos
Julian Pardo preparing for El Ritual del Sancocho. Photo Credit: Juan Matos
Julian Pardo performing El Ritual del Sancocho. Photo Credit: Juan Matos
Julian Pardo preparing for El Ritual del Sancocho. Photo Credit: Juan Matos
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Jenna Balfe is an active dancer, musician, performance artist and teacher in Miami, Florida. Balfe has a Master of Science degree in Dance Movement Therapy from Pratt Institute, New York. She is the lead singer of the performance art no wave band DONZII and teaches a creative movement class called Bodymovement at different locations in the community.
Ayesha Singh born New Delhi, India, completed her MFA in Sculpture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2018) and BFA from the Slade School of Fine Art, London, UK (2013.) Singh currently has on view the work Provisional Obstruction, a collaboration with Reflection's Director, Misael Soto. Through an interdisciplinary practice that lays emphasis on movement and displacement; Singh questions social hierarchies, political agendas and subconscious value systems placed on ornamentation, design and material in architectural pastiches that construct our cities and homes. Once a building has been ideated, allotted, designed and constructed, what is the experience of the individual, the community and others affected?
Two Workshops
Sunday, December 8, 2019, 11am - 1pm
Main Office (1001 Ocean Drive)
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11am - Creative Lobbying
for All Ages
Jenna Balfe's workshop will utilize different techniques including, writing, vocalization, dance improv, storytelling and performance to explore the possibility of using movement as a means of lobbying for various political and institutional change. Please wear comfortable clothing and bring a journal.
Photo Credit: Juan Matos
Noon - Building Future Archives
for Children Ages 10-16
Ayesha Singh's workshop will prompt children to re-imagine their future cities, starting at the space most familiar to them - their homes. With each participant designing one building, the workshop will result in a digital archive of drawings made by children from around the world, starting from spaces where they currently reside, leading toward shared perspectives of a future constructed landscape. Previously held in New Delhi, this is part of a larger series of workshops conducted around the world; the next iteration of which will be January in Chennai, India.
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Reflecting Pools
December 3-9, 2019
Untitled, Art, Miami Beach, Florida
The Department of Reflection presents Reflecting Pools, a temporary public water feature consisting of two reflecting pools with walls made of sandbags and two industrial gas-powered water pumps, like those used for emergency flooding situations. The public installation was activated daily by operators Jenna Carr Balfe and Dennis Brewster Fuller, with live musical accompaniment by Oscar Bustillo and Miles Hancock.
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In the midsts of Miami Art Week, the Reflecting Pools became a site for communal public reflection on the very real embodied implications of sea level rise mitigation and resiliency efforts.
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Photographed by Natalia Molina, Courtesy Facebook Art Department.
Photographed by Natalia Molina, Courtesy Facebook Art Department.
Photographed by Natalia Molina, Courtesy Facebook Art Department.
Photographed by Natalia Molina, Courtesy Facebook Art Department.
End of Year Open House at Main Office
1001 Ocean Drive
Saturday, December 21, 2019, 2 - 4pm
Please join us at our Main Office location within the Miami Design Preservation League's Art Deco Museum. Director Misael Soto will be on hand to discuss what DoR is today, what we've accomplished over the past year and a half, and how you can join us on our mission.
To assist us with this, we've invited A.G. to present his lecture titled "Let's not do this right now" after which there will be a short (silent) Q&A. About "choosing to not," the presentation is a short practical guide on resisting contemporary demands to produce.
After A.G.'s presentation, a guided mediation will cap the afternoon and send us off ready for the final weeks of 2019 and the new year.
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Image: A.G. Let's not do this right now, 2015, Presentation excerpt.
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A.G. (b. 1986, Miami, FL) is an artist living and working in Miami, Florida. After graduating from the New World School of the Arts, he received his BFA in Sculpture and Art History from the University of Florida (2009). He has exhibited nationally and internationally, with recent and upcoming shows in Los Angeles, New York City, Miami and Berlin. Recent solo exhibitions include TALENT at Primary in Miami, INTRO at Artist Curated Projects in Los Angeles (2017), Don't tell someone that you like how they are doing something because they may stop to thank you at Regina Rex in New York City (2016) and Nobody knows me better than you at Locust Projects in Miami, Florida (2014). He has also been included in several group exhibitions, including The Coffins of Paa Joe and The Pursuit of Happiness at Jack Shainman Gallery, NY and An Image at Oolite Art in Miami Beach, Florida.
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A.G.’s transdisciplinary practice aims to utilize production, theatrical modalities, and show business as a realm of thought vis-à-vis reality as a malleable material and the self-direction and agency of identity-design. Through a compound practice of research and training in the fields of entertainment and conservatory style training, A.G. leverages the psychological findings as texts and object-based works, while simultaneously scrutinizing the exhibition site as a site of production and vice versa.