The City of Miami Beach Introduces New Department – Ribbon Cutting Ceremony and Special Community Presentation

When: Saturday, September 14 From 2:00 P.M. to 6:00 P.M.

Where: The Collins Park Rotunda, 2100 Collins Ave

About:

Designed as a reflection of Miami Beach City Hall’s interior spaces, the department’s Main Office will become a hub, meeting place, and flex space for the Department of Reflection; giving the public insight into its current research and work with the city. The site will be an approachable and dialogue-friendly environment, open to the public every Saturday from 2 to 6pm or by appointment. Exchange around Miami Beach’s sea level rise and climate change mitigation efforts, and their effects locally, regionally, and globally will be encouraged via:

Interactive installations
Public events every other Saturday
Bookleggers Library
Bicycle Rental
and more!

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.

About the Artist

Born in Puerto Rico in 1986, Misael Soto received an MFA from the School of Art Institute of Chicago and graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachlelors Degree in Art History from Florida Atlantic University. Beyond public artworks shown extensively for many years, Soto 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, Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale, and Young Art Museum I Davie, Florida, amongst others. Soto was awarded the South Florida Cultural Consortium Award for 2019 and an Ellie’s Award from Oolite Arts in 2018. For more information, visit www.misaelsoto.com.