Lost and Held

Photo of a bed against a white wall (lengthwise) sitting on a large brown and orange rug with geometric designs. The bed has white sheets, one white pillow on the right end and a closed purple suitcase on the left.

An interactive installation

What do we take when we are displaced in space and in time? How do we hold on to memories? How do we wear and keep home?

‘Lost and Held’ is an interactive installation that explores the dual modes of homemaking and displacement through tracings of memories, moments, and places in Miami. Bahamian carvings at Vizcaya, friends and family, Santa’s, watching Nick at Nite, Kendall strawberry fields, DJ Laz, the movies, the beach are all pieces of home, some lost and some held.

The suitcase serves as a tool of displacement, both a means of transportation and a temporary home for objects and memories. For Miami folks in particular, the ocean carries hope, risk, bodies, memories, and dreams. Like the presence of a suitcase, the ocean is a symbol of home and more and more a harbinger of displacement (sea levels rising).

2023 suitcase, bed, embroidery on clothing, tracings on found objects
on exhibit from Nov 2023 - March 2024 at Green Space Miami, including during Miami Art Week

photo looking down into an open suitcase on a bed. Items in suitcase include Fisher Price movie viewer, jeans with a large hole on the knee, a ziplock bag, sunglasses, a toiletry bag

A mom carries her 7 year old daughter in her arms. The daughter is snuggled close, the sides of their faces touching.

inside of sunglasses with paper circles on the eyes. Left eye has a drawing of strawberry fields. Right eye has a drawing of a building in the same field

large hole in knee of blue jeans shows an embroidery of 5 little girls and a small fluffy dog, one girl sitting on a chair and the rest sitting on the floor. The first three are sitting in a line each girl braiding the hair of the girl in front of her.

embroidery of an airboat in the Everglades with a woman, a child leaning her head on the shoulder of a second woman sitting on the airboat. The embroidery only uses black to outline the image.

Photo of a black man with a backpack leaning over and looking at items in the suitcase while a curly haired woman sits on the bed grabbing for something in the suitcase

a woman with a hijab stands in front of the bed and holds a working tiny tv in between her fingers. She looks to someone off camera to the right with a face or surprise and delight

photo of two little black girls standing in front of the bed. The younger one on the right holds a pop up dollhouse book open in her hands while her sister looks at the dollhouse

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Displacing further....

As part of exploring the theme of displacement in Miami and in using exquisite corpse, I collaborated with choreographer Hattie Mae Williams. Click here for the performance.

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