FAENA FESTIVAL
Miami Art Week 2018

THIS IS NOT AMERICA

Curated by Zoe Lukov
Faena District Miami Beach

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.

‘Faena Festival: This is Not America’, was keyed to Miami’s enduring role as a port city that welcomes migrants, refugees, and tourists from across the US and the Americas, and from countries throughout the world. The festival engaged with the multiplicity of communities and cultures and the palimpsest of histories that have created the Americas while responding specifically to Miami as a hemispheric hub. Works in the festival reflected the continuities and changes across the Americas—from South to North—based on shared histories and the interchange of contemporary cultures.

The festival proposed a new curatorial format that took place throughout the Faena district and the city of Miami Beach, and insisted upon reimagining preconceived notions about geopolitical definitions of space and culture.