Date: Friday, May 24, 2024

Hours: 12:00 PM – 12:00 AM

Admission: Free

Location: MDC North Campus (11380 NW 27th Ave, Miami, FL 33167)

The Museum of Art and Design (MOAD) at Miami Dade College (MDC) presents Germane Barnes: Ukhamba, a new commission by the Museum and the second installment in an annual series of MOAD Pavilions. Designed by Germane Barnes, Miami-based artist, architect and educator, Ukhamba will be sited on the Building 1 Plaza at MDC’s Wolfson Campus during November 12, 2023–February 24, 2024 and on MDC’s North Campus from March 11 to May 26, 2024.

Named after a type of African woven-wood basket, Ukhamba is a 10-foot-tall circular structure built of curved wooden elements stacked in horizontal layers. Its construction, with four arched entrances, invites visitors to walk inside and congregate but allows the surrounding plaza and urban landscape to remain visible through the structure. Inspired by Barnes’s time working abroad in South Africa, as well as in Miami, Ukhamba not only responds to Miami’s sub-tropical climate but also unites architectural elements typical of diasporic communities of African and Caribbean origin. It comprises a pavilion that appears part basket, part traditional breeze wall.

Ukhamba is a space for reflection on our relationship to the built environment, urban design, its histories, and cultural memories. Barnes’s pavilion continues the artist’s exploration of themes of spatial identity, migration, the cultural influences of the African diaspora, and its contributions to classical architecture. Primarily using materials found in South Florida, the artist has focused on sustainability and has designed a structure in dialogue with the history and natural environment that surrounds it.

Barnes stated, “This is an amazing opportunity that allows me to continue honoring diverse legacies and cultures. My first semi-permanent pavilion, this structure combines the influences of the many places I have called home—and abstracts those memories into built form.”

About Germane Barnes

Born in Chicago, Germane Barnes received a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Master of Architecture from Woodbury University, where he was awarded the Thesis Prize for his project Symbiotic Territories: Architectural Investigations of Race, Identity, and Community. Currently he is an Assistant Professor and the Director of The Community Housing & Identity Lab (CHIL) at the University of Miami School of Architecture, a testing ground for the physical and theoretical investigations of architecture’s social and political resiliency. His work has been featured in international institutions most notably, The Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco MoMA, LACMA, Chicago Architecture Biennial, MAS Context, The Graham Foundation, The New York Times, Architect Magazine, DesignMIAMI/Art Basel, Metropolis Magazine, Domus, Wallpaper* Magazine, and The National Museum of African American History, where he was identified as one of the future designers on the rise.

Barnes’s award-winning research and design practice investigates the connection between architecture and identity, examining architecture’s social and political agency through historical research and design speculation. Mining architecture’s social and political agency, he examines how the built environment influences Black domesticity.

Contact Museum of Art and Design (MOAD) at Miami Dade College (MDC)

Website: www.moadmdc.org/
Phone: (305) 237-7700

Photo Credit: Germane Barnes Courtesy of MOAD at MDC

Date Posted: October 28, 2023