FAENA FESTIVAL

Curated for two consecutive years by Zoe Lukov, this festival took over every corner of the Faena District Miami Beach, transforming it into an immense canvas during two editions of Miami Art Week (2018 - 2019).

An experimental platform, the first-ever Faena Festival (2018) was an exploration of America as a concept, a myth, and a narrative that–at times–has divided us, but ultimately has the power to unify across physical, political, and conceptual borders.

The first iteration of the ‘Faena Festival: This Is Not America’ took Alfredo Jaar’s prescient 1987 work ‘A Logo for America’, as a point of departure for the exploration of America as a place, concept, and myth. In addition to this iconic work, it featured commissions, installations, videos and performances by Derrick Adams, Miya Ando, Cecilia Bengolea, Joseph Beuys, Ana Teresa Fernández, Eugene Jarecki, Isabel Lewis, Boris Mitic, Luna Paiva, George Sánchez-Calderón, Tavares Strachan, Wu Tsang and boychild, Agustina Woodgate and Rev. Houston R. Cypress.

The second-annual Faena Festival (2019) was an exploration of spirituality and food in contemporary art, a platform for congregation through new contemporary rituals. The Faena Festival explored food and spirituality, abundance and sacrifice, indulgence and abstinence through archetypal symbolism and contemporary aesthetics. Taking both the pulpit and the kitchen as its points of departure, the Festival invited us to break bread together and posits that the shared meal or prayer is the crux of social interaction and communal connectivity. it featured commissions, installations, videos and performances by Sophia Al-Maria, Yael Bartana, Myrlande Constant, Gabriel Chaile, Jim Denevan, Camille Henrot, Zhang Huan, Christian Jankowski, Jillian Mayer, Pedro Neves Marques, The Propeller Group, Emeka Ogboh, Grethell Rasúa, Jamilah Sabur, and Osías Yanov.