2025 Locust Art Builders Final Report

LOCUST ART BUILDERS LOCUST PROJECTS

2025 FINAL REPORT

CELEBRATING 15 YEARS OF INSPIRING THE NEXT GENERATION OF CREATIVES!

LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR

As part of our mission to support the next generation of artists with opportunities and resources to empower their creative growth and interests, Locust Art Builders: Summer Art Intensive for Teens (LAB) invites aspiring young artists and creatives from schools across Miami-Dade to apply for the opportunity to connect and collaborate with their peers and learn from mentor artists as they build a large-scale, immersive exhibition at Locust Projects, a 27-year old, nationally-recognized alternative art space in Miami.

Since it was founded in 2010, LAB has established a reputation as an intimate, experiential summer art intensive designed to inspire creative teens to build the world they imagine, offering scholarships to up to thirty students for four to five weeks of mentorship under professional artists.

LAB has provided more than 305 students with a distinctive hands-on experience and is one of the only selective pre-college, hands-on, immersive art programs in the region.

Since I joined Locust in 2017, I have first-hand seen the impact of LAB on our students and am blown away every year by the commitment, creativity, and care each student brings to their LAB experience. It’s more than a summer art camp, it’s an experience that is everlasting. Please read the linked testimonials and watch the student-produced video and you will get a glimpse into what makes LAB so special. Every year is an experience and experiment as students from across Miami are gathered to collaboratively make an exhibition from scratch.

Thank you to all who have created, sustained and supported this wonderful program over the past 15 years.

With gratitude,

Lorie Mertes | Exectutive Director

LOCUST ART BUILDERS 2025

OVERVIEW

Summer Art Intensive Sessions: June 16-July 19, 2025 LAB exhibition on view: July 19-August 2, 2025 Starting June 16, 2025, fourteen students from seven high schools across Miami met for the 15th year of Locust Art Builders Summer Art Intensive. The talented and ambitious group of aspiring young artists came together for five weeks to collaboratively build an exhibition in our Project Room.

In celebration of it’s 15th anniversary, this year’s LAB was led by an ensemble of Mentor Artists, longtime LAB Lead Mentors, Loni Johnson and Chire Reagans; Rodolfo Peraza (MUD Foundation), Eric Hupe (Zuexis VR), and Cynthia Cruz, who provided hands-on workshops and digital curriculum; coordination support from artist and curator Melissa Wallen; and technical support from Miami Design Shop, in addition to Locust Projects team members, including past LAB student and intern, Dani Pearson.

Students experimented with multiple types of tools and media to support their vision, and received feedback during weekly skills-building workshops and the annual Mentor Meet + Greet Brunch. The students’ ideas came to life as they collaboratively built an immersive installation they titled HYPERVIGILANCE, which opened with a reception for more than 150 of their family and friends and the public on July 19, 2025.

This year’s LAB program included students from: • Terra Environmental Research Institute • Miami Senior High School • New World School of the Arts • Coral Gables Senior High • Miami Arts Charter School • Design and Architecture Senior High • Palmer Trinity School

Locust Projects seeks to make the LAB experience equitably accessible to all students by offering fullyfunded scholarships, access to art supplies and travel stipends, and more.

LAB BUILDERS BAG Each student’s bag was filled with supplies, including: • Jerry’s Artarama art supplies • Special edition Tomas Vu T-shirt custom-printed for each LAB student TRAVEL STIPENDS • With student’s living at all ends of Miami-Dade to make LAB economically and geographically equitable, all students have access to receive travel stipends to offset the cost transportation to and from LAB and home.

2025 ARTIST MENTORS Loni Johnson uses movement and ritual to create healing spaces for Black women and explores how ancestral and historical memory informs how, when and where we enter and claim spaces. She is a 2021 recipient of Oolite Arts Ellies Social Justice Award. Recent projects: As We Move Forward at Augusta Savage Gallery, Amherst MA (2024), Making Miami, Miami Design District (2023), Biscayne at Kampong Gardens, Miami (2023), Asake: a conversation with self at 74th and Collins Oolite’s Walgreen’s storefront, Miami Beach (2023), Remnants at Locust Projects, Miami (2021).

Chire Regans (AKA Vanta Black), has received critical recognition for an art practice that exists at the intersection of social justice and storytelling advancing social justice and racial equity. Awards include: Inaugural Ellies Social Justice Award (2020), and the Racial Equity Initiative Award (2021). Recent solo project: To What Lengths, Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Art on the Plaza, North Miami, curated by Adeze Wilford (2022). Their Say Their Names mural project memorializing victims of gun violence was featured on PBS in 2022.

Rodolfo Peraza is a Cuban-born, US-based, tech-centered artist. His work focuses on virtual and physical public spaces, XR, and DataVis. founder of the MUD Foundation INC in Miami (2017), supporting techcentered arts programs and lower barriers to accessing immersive technology in arts and education. Peraza’s work has been exhibited widely, including at SIGGRAPH LA, the Pérez Art Museum, his work is at the permanent collections of the AGO Museum CA and Jumex Collection MEX, and he is a 2021 Knight Art + Tech Fellow.

Eric Hupe is an Assistant Professor of Art History at Lafayette College and the director of ZeuxisVR: Immersive Art History. He specializes in Italian Renaissance art, with a focus on the intersections of art, optical science, and theology in early modern Italy. This research has been published in Predella, Source: Notes in the History of Art, and Artibus et Historiae. Through ZeuxisVR, Hupe leads a digital initiative that creates virtual reality environments of cultural sites and develops open educational resources, enhancing art history pedagogy by making cultural heritage accessible to a broader audience.

Cynthia Cruz,is a multi-media artist whose work merges technology with folklore, animism, and sci-fi to create fictional worlds.

Collaborating with AI since 2020, she produces digital collages and soundscapes from algorithmic interactions. Her work has been shown internationally at venues like Thames-Side Studios Gallery, David Castillo Gallery, and the Bass Museum. Also active as a curator and educator, she is a recipient of the ACME/Goldsmiths MFA Studio Award and continues her AI-focused practice at the Bakehouse Art Complex.

WORKSHOPS For the 2025 edition of Locust Projects’ LAB Summer Art Intensive for Teens, students explored the intersection of art and technology through hands-on workshops led by artist practitioners and professionals. In the first week, longtime LAB Lead Artist Mentors, Loni Johnson and Chire Regans (aka VantaBlack), guided discussions around artistic voice, accessibility, collaboration, and thematic elements of the students’ future exhibition, establishing an environment supporting positive communication and respectful debate for the students in their interactions.

Week two focused on sound design and animation with teaching artist Cynthia Cruz and Andrew McLees, Locust Projects’ Art + Digital Innovation Manager, where students made handcut collages that they then photographed to apply cutting-edge software like Runway ML and Ableton Live to build uncanny audio-visual compositions. Students also attended an artist-led presentation by LAB MFA artist, Parinaz Moghadampour, whose digital exhibition was on view in the Project Room.

Week three, 2025 Knight Foundation Art + Tech Fellow Rodolfo Peraza of the MUD Foundation introduced the students to various digital media as an extension of MUD’s XRCamp, a bootcampstyle series of workshops covering virtual reality, software such as Blender 3D, and more. Students then created digital renderings of their installation in an XR platform and prepared files for 3D printing objects that would become integrated into the exhibition.

Week four began with a field trip to Miami Design Shop, a full-service digital fabrication studio steps from Locust, where students toured the warehouse, received their newly printed 3D-designed objects, and met with the creative team who demonstrated how technology fuels their production studio business. The final week was dedicated to installing the exhibition, developing artist statements, and preparing for the public opening.

FIELD TRIPS MIAMI DESIGN SHOP

As part of this year’s LAB, students took a field trip to our neighbors at the Miami Design Shop, a major production and design shop, for a hands-on introduction to digital fabrication and design.

With guidance from the MDS team, students explored tools like 3D printing, CNC fabrication, and Rhino software, seeing their own 3D models come to life. The visit offered an inspiring look into creative career pathways in design, thanks to the generous in-kind support and mentorship of our neighbors at Miami Design Shop.

BAKEHOUSE ART COMPLEX

At Bakehouse Art Complex, celebrating 40 years of supporting artists with artists studios, students toured working artist studios and connected one-on-one with professional artists. The experience provided a fresh wave of inspiration for their final exhibition. Thanks to the artists who invited us into their spaces: Nicole Combeau, Fabiola Larios, Moises Sanabria, and Tom Virgin. The trip ended with each student taking home a free book from Bookleggers Library!

MEET THE 2025 LAB INTERNS

Each year Locust Projects invites students from the previous year’s LAB to serve as mentor interns and document the LAB experience from their perspective. This year’s interns are Julian Henriquez and Ric Calix.

Julian is a rising senior at Miami Arts Charter studying Visual Arts. Julian’s passions include collecting vinyls and CDs and experimenting with different artistic mediums.

Ric is also a rising senior at Miami Arts Charter in the Visual Arts department. Ric enjoys working with character art, visual and sound design in video games, and occasionally dabbles in acrylic painting. Working at Locust Projects was their first time working with photography or videography!

AN INTERN’S PERSPECTIVE ON LAB Every year our LAB College-level Summer interns are tasked with all aspects of creating a documentary video for LAB and a blog overview of the student’s LAB experience from their perspective to their final project assignment. Capturing daily activities and moments over LAB’s five-week run and scenes from the opening and the LAB student final exhibition, their final video gives a behind-the-scenes look at one of Miami’s most impactful teen summer art pre-college programs. Published on our YouTube Channel and Closer Look Blog it also gives our interns an incredible professional achievement to list on their resumes.

CLICK TO READ THE BLOG The 2025 LAB Documentary was shot and edited

by Ric, with additional support from Julian. Julian also took ownership of the blog post, recording an interview between himself and Ric, and learned how to use Squarespace in the process.

CLICK TO WATCH THE VIDEO

"I was part of the 2024 Cohort, and wanted to give back to Locust Projects and come back on as an Intern. I suppose what Interested me the most about the program was how it provides an outlet for kids around Miami to express themselves collaboratively and creatively in a space that allows them to explore certain themes and build an installation that wouldn’t fly in school.

The people that I’ve met and connections I’ve met in my time have been invaluable and I have Locust Projects to thank.

- Julian

LAB MENTOR MEET + GREET BRUNCH The Mentor Meet + Greet Brunch hosted by the LAB students on Tuesday, July 15 welcomed practicing artists, teachers, creative professionals, and other LAB supporters.

The students each introduced themselves, answered questions about their work in-progress, shared their experiences with the program and how they have built new relationships. With the Meet + Greet happening during the crucial final install week, they were also able to talk through ideas, get tips on execution, and problem solve with the mentors.

The event provided a special opportunity for the students to network and learn more about arts careers while gaining confidence and becoming more comfortable speaking about their work and presenting it to the public.

2025 LAB STUDENT EXHIBITION HYPERVIGILANCE ON VIEW JULY 19 - AUGUST 2, 2025

STUDENT ARTISTS’ STATEMENT: Hypervigilance is an exhibition we created to explore what it feels like to grow up in a world where we’re always being watched. From school hallways to social media, surveillance shows up in both obvious and subtle ways—through cameras, algorithms, judgment, and expectations. For us, Hypervigilance is about the constant pressure to be seen, to perform, and to conform.

We asked ourselves: When does watching become controlling? Who gets to watch, and who is being watched? This installation comes from our own stories, our daily experiences, and the unsettling feeling of never truly being alone—even in our own thoughts. We used collage, sound, and sculpture to express how surveillance shapes our identities, our behaviors, and our sense of freedom.

Hypervigilance frames surveillance as an umbrella term, one that encompasses religion, judgment, censorship, and technology. It’s the feeling that someone is always evaluating what we do or say. We wanted to explore how that kind of constant observation changes the way we move, speak, and think about ourselves.

Through this project, we reclaimed part of that gaze—turning it into something we could shape, challenge, and share on our own terms.

Above: Student-created promotion design for the exhibition.

PROCESS & INSTALLATION The students last weeks were a whirlwind of activity as they worked hard individually and collectively of installation to execute their exhibition. Collaboration was the driving force of their final push to complete their show in time for opening night on July 19.

OPENING NIGHT Saturday, July 19, 2025

Family and friends attended the opening reception for HYPERVIGILANCE and watched the students receive their certificates for participation which many use in applications for college.

POST PROGRAM EVALUATION Post-assessment surveys required from each student to complete LAB at the end of the program showed that students were challenged when having to compromise with their peers, but through collaborative activities and the group exhibition they learned how to connect, communicate, and embrace their differences. Some of their favorite aspects of LAB include the field trips, the hands-on workshops, exhibition preparation, and the whole collaborative nature of the intensive.

Students’ answers provide critical feedback on what worked and what didn’t giving Locust Projects insights on areas to improve for next year.

EVALUATION QUOTES “The best part of LAB was the people. Being around creatives for 5 weeks made me feel incredibly inspired and motivated.”

“I’m very grateful with LAB because it reassured my dream of becoming a curator. I’m going to remember this experience almost every time I get to work with an important partner in my career and have to go back to my first collaboration. Now that I have experienced how the process is, I feel safer and more ambitious for my future.”

“This program inspired me creatively by holding me accountable. Usually I get artist’s block whenever I work on a big project but being in a group made me realize that I must do my part in order to create an exhibition we are all proud of. I feel more empowered to experiment in my work in the sense that I am now interested in working with more large-scale ideas.”

SHARING THE LAB EXPERIENCE

CONNECTING WITH OUR COMMUNITY 13 LAB-focused Instagram posts had more than 15,000 impressions and were visible to over 24,000 followers.

13 LAB-related Facebook posts had over 4,000 impressions and were visible to over 6,500 followers.

Six eNewsletters highlighting the LAB program including two dedicated eNewsletters were sent to our database of 19,860 local, national, and international constituents.

Celebrating 15 years of inspiring the next generation of creatives at Locust Projects.

Locust Art Builders: Summer Art Intensive for Teens 2025 is made possible through lead support from: the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, The Miami-Dade County Mayor Board and County Commissioners, The Children’s Trust; Susan & Richard Arregui; Diane & Werner Grob; The Kirk Foundation; and the INCUBATORS Friends of the Next Generation.

Additional technical support provided by Miami Design Shop.

MENTOR TEACHERS