A visit to “MOCA” -Museum of Contemporary Arts,North Miami
I am a venturous spirit and I feel a compulsive need to explore new places,so when we shifted to Miami we decided to do some peripatetic wandering around the city, and after visiting some places,beaches,etc. we took a halt on Museum “MOCA”.
As a writer and artist(fiction writers are artist,yup! you heard it right) I feel traveling around the globe is very necessary and knowing history and culture should be the inevitable attitude of any artist to refine there own art, therefore I like to visit museums whenever I land up in any new city.
When we enter MOCA North Miami, I felt this museum is different from other museums,it has small and clear displayed collection, unlike other museums whose exhibition style is in a cluttered way.
“MOCA North Miami display there neighborhood ‘Haiti’ a Caribbean country’s despair story of the earthquake”.
Some urban artists of ‘Haiti’s’ capital- Port-au-Prince created some magical artifacts from industrial wastes and street side spare items at time of devastating earthquake in 2010.
Ti Pelin an artist from Haiti engraves some breathtaking ‘sculptures head’ from the stones from the shore side of ‘Rivière Froide’. One of the unique features of all these sculptures is these all are heads of man from Haiti and given emphasis on their divers face expressions, which is carved from a single piece of boulders.All these faces are having extravagant facial features which shows Haiti male species quintessence.
Another part of the museum, which covers the first and side part of the gallery where artist’s La Grande Rue loosely made and rugged sculptures are exhibited which includes the tangled mass of car parts, mattress coils and bicycle wheels.
Moving to the second part of the museum,the front and side wall of the museum which divides museum into two parts are decorated with various ‘dragon’ hanging artifacts which you can see on the above picture.
The second part of the museum is full of ‘Haiti’ religious belief and Haitian belief on ‘Vodou’ which means ‘spirit’ and people of Haiti practice Haitian Vodou. Vodou is followed mainly by the African ethnic group and the practitioner of Vodou is known as “vodouists” or “servants of the spirits”. Its fundamental principle is that everything is spirit. Humans are spirits who inhabit the visible world. The unseen world is populated by lwa (spirits), mystè (mysteries), anvizib (the invisibles), zanj(angels), and the spirits of ancestors and the recently deceased. All these spirits are believed to live in a mythic land called Ginen, a cosmic “Africa.” The God of the Christian Bible is understood to be the creator of both the universe and the spirits; the spirits were made by God to help him govern humanity and the natural world.
Vodou artifacts were created by artist Bel Air, he made many spangled flags and other items showing the belief of Haitian people on Vodou.
MOCA had many amazing sculptures, documented photography,abstract kind of artifacts and religious & cultural objects exhibited, which makes it absolute must visit museum to explore Haiti or African ethnic- based life, while not physically traveling to African countries than also you can have a glimpse of it by visiting MOCA North Miami.
