JAMILAH SABUR

For the exhibition, the artist has been commissioned to create a new public sculpture placed on the exterior façade of the building. The new turquoise neon states ‘C’est l’envers’, French for ‘It’s upside down’ or ‘Inside out’ or ‘The wrong way round’. Perhaps better said, nothing is as it seems. The phrase in Miami aqua blue, references the iconic signage and spectacle of Miami architecture but comes from a dream the artist had where a spirit or ancestor was repeating the phrase to her. She woke up speaking the message out loud and realized it was a message that needed to be transmitted and memorialized.

Metaphysics, geology, and memory are recurrent themes in the work of Jamilah Sabur (Jamaica, b. 1987). In her practice, the artist employs a distinct poetics, reframing territory, and nationality. She explores the temporary nature of existence and our fleeting presence in it, a thread that connects us all. A new planetary literacy emerges in her work, where alternate geographies become possible as submerged histories are revealed. Sabur's work has been shown at galleries and institutions such as Pérez Art Museum, Miami; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit.