Illuminate Coral Gables is South Florida's first light and technology art exhibition
on view to the public from February 12th through March 13th.
One of the crown jewels for Illuminate titled Blue Night is by one of the most
important American artists named Kiki Smith. Kiki Smith wanted to do a piece that brought
nature back into the downtown and through 42 different suspended artworks over Giralda Plaza,
these animal constellations light up through sunlight or through augmented reality at night.
My name is Sandra Ramos and the work I am presenting in Illuminate
Coral Gables is titled 90 Miles: De-construction. 90 Miles is a piece
that established a bridge between the cities of Havana and Miami. The piece is made with pictures
that I took from the airplane window in a trip from Havana to Miami and show the sea from the
Florida stretch. The light boxes symbolize how close we are geographically
and how far we are politically.
I'm Jonathan Perez and with a small group of students, I produced this site-specific video essay
projection map installation. The work deals with the ecological and geological history of the site
in relation to South Florida more generally.
My name is Ari Temkin. I'm one of the students. I personally worked on documenting this
endangered splash pine in the Everglades and I culminated it into an AI generated video that
actually reintroduces this ecosystem to Coral Gables since its destruction.
Martinique-based artist David Gumbs has created Echoes of My Skin.
The large-scale projection on the side of Actor's Playhouse
is fully interactive. It's meant to bring in the pedestrians, track their movements, recreate it
through different images of blossoming and flying elements. It's basically a release of the spirit
and it's to remember and show hope for those who have been lost.
My name is Carlos Estevez. I'm a Cuban artist based in Miami.
I have the privilege to be part of this incredible project Illuminate.
My work consists it's an animation and it's about the spiritual universe of the human being
and it's called Urban Universes. It's a project about empathy and community and the sense of what
we are living all together in this place and also it's about communication and observation of life.
We are so thrilled to bring Fireflies by Chinese artist
Cai Guo-Qiang to be one part of Illuminate Coral Gables.
Fireflies is really one of the most successful public artworks that I've been involved with.
It's about diversity, equity, bringing different communities together and, most importantly,
allowing families to share an experience right around downtown in a gorgeous kinetic sculpture.
Illuminate Coral Gables was intended of being an outdoor free exhibition
and shockingly we realized that, through an unexpected global pandemic,
this project was perfectly appropriate to go forward. The beauty was people were able to
come outside, maintain CDC standards and feel safe and normal while meeting the community
and seeing really great artworks. It's truly a spectacle to experience.