Community program · Alice in Flowerland
Connecting and Painting Community
Art made by the community, for the community
Connecting and Painting Community is my public art program. As an anthropologist and artist, I bring neighbors together, children, seniors, families and city workers, to create art for the places they share. The pieces are made by many hands over months of weekly gatherings, and each one carries the stories of the people who made it.
The program began in 2020 as Knitting and Painting Community, when the children of the North Miami Beach Library's after-school program and I painted the library's amphitheater. It changed its name because the goal is bigger than knitting or crochet: it is for communities to use art in all its forms to connect, heal and transform their surroundings.
Projects
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2026
Breast Cancer Awareness Crochet Car
NMB Centennial Festival and North Miami Beach Library, Florida
A car covered from bumper to bumper in pink crochet, made by the women of the North Miami Beach Library crochet group as part of Connecting and Painting Community. It was first exhibited at the North Miami Beach Centennial Festival and then shown at the North...
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2025
Dancing Umbrellas
North Miami Beach, Florida
Dancing Umbrellas is the second annual art installation of the Connecting and Painting Community program. After the success of its debut in 2024, which decorated the palm trees of North Miami Beach with crocheted squares, the 2025 chapter took the installation...
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2024
Crochet Palm Trees
164th Street, North Miami Beach, Florida
The first crochet installation of the Connecting and Painting Community program: a public art initiative that brought community members together to crochet colorful granny squares for the palm trees and public spaces of North Miami Beach.
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2022
Tawala Wayuu Fest
Parque 93, Bogotá, Colombia
Tawala Wayuu Fest is the fulfillment of my dream as an anthropologist and artist: a festival of tradition, art and culture, a burst of color and creativity. The Wayuu women of La Guajira, who pass down their ritual and philosophical legacy from generation to g...
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2020
Symphony of Flowers
Senator Gwen Margolis Amphitheater, North Miami Beach Library, Florida
Created in collaboration with the children of the North Miami Beach Library's after-school program as part of the "knitting and painting community" initiative. Sponsored by The Children's Trust, the students transformed the Senator Gwen Margolis Amphitheater i...
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