Morning Glory-Faena Art Prize (2022)
Morning Glory is a public art installation developed for the beach in Miami as the winning project of the 2022 Faena Art Prize. The proposal emerged from my interest in plant lifeforms, especially those inhabiting coastal environments. I wanted to explore art as a site for situated learning, and it was at the intersection of nature, body, and territory that I encountered the beach morning glory—a creeping vine whose seeds travel across the ocean, colonizing dunes and helping stabilize soil—as both a conceptual and formal model for the work.
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From the beginning, I wanted this flower—silent yet resilient—to become a habitable space. Together with architect Vicente Donoso, we designed a topographic structure to be walked through and occupied by the public. A central path—the stem—branched into concave spaces—leaves and flowers—built in wood and modeled with sand. Each space was conceived as a place for gathering, resting, or activation, linking walking with imagining, presence with contemplation.
The design and construction process went through several versions, materials, and scales. Initially, we envisioned a soft surface made of recycled fabric cushions filled with sand, but technical and logistical constraints led us to rethink the plan. We ultimately opted for a modular wooden structure that could be installed directly on the beach. This transformation made the project’s spirit clearer: working with what is available, revealing what is already present in the landscape, and responding to the environment’s conditions.
The piece was inaugurated on November 29, 2022, during Miami Art Week. Its construction was a collective act involving designers, carpenters, curators, technicians, and local collaborators. For six days, Morning Glory hosted a program of activations including breathing sessions, experimental workshops, open conversations, coastal walks, and a sunset jazz jam session. It was also spontaneously inhabited: people in wheelchairs reaching the sea for the first time, children playing among the wooden forms as if they were dunes, couples using it as a wedding photo site or a place to say goodbye to the ocean.
Beyond the event, the piece was conceived as a traveling seed: an installation that can be reactivated in different contexts, adapting to new grounds, audiences, and landscapes. Though its presence in Miami was ephemeral, the memory of its design, construction, and use endures as a replicable model for future experiences. Morning Glory proposes a way of being in the world grounded in horizontality, sensitivity, and collaboration: a flower stretched out on the sand, inviting us to pause, to think with the body, and to share time with others.
