Meet the Artist Party with Edison Peñafiel

Migration, repetition and displacement unfold through video, sound and textile in Edison Peñafiel’s immersive MARE MAGNVM at Locust Projects. The Saturday, December 5 Meet the Artist Party offers Miami Art Week visitors an opportunity to encounter the Ecuadorian-born, Miami-based artist and the first chapter of his larger project, The Mare Magnvm Cosmology.

First realized in 2021 and reconfigured for each setting, MARE MAGNVM receives its Miami premiere at an expanded scale at Locust Projects. The installation depicts a monochromatic sea crossed by 14 boats carrying 81 masked figures who return to their starting point every 30 minutes. Vessels assembled from materials including wood, oil drums and tires reference historical and contemporary journeys across water, while papier-mâché masks rooted in Ecuadorian traditions obscure individual identities and broaden the work’s meditation on migration and belonging.

The project will continue in 2027 with De Profundis Clamavi ad Astra (From the Depths I Cried Out to the Stars), a new commission supported by VIA Art Fund that extends Peñafiel’s imagined cosmology beneath the sea. The Miami Art Week gathering is free.