"Migration in my work is not an event that happens once. It is a cycle that repeats across generations, across geographies, across centuries. I want the viewer to feel that structure — the way systems process bodies, the way people disappear and are still present at the same time, the way matter is transformed."                  
- Edison Peñafiel

Locust Projects is proud to present Tides and Passages, an ambitious two-chapter presentation of recent and new large-scale new works by Ecuadorian-born, Miami-based artist Edison Peñafiel. Tides and Passages unfolds across two chapters. Chapter I, a major revisioning of Peñafiel's evolving work MARE MAGNVM, debuts in Miami in November 2026 during Locust Projects' Annual Benefit Dinner and is the sole project featured during Miami Art Week.

In June 2027, Locust Projects presents Chapter II: De Profundis Clamavi ad Astra (From the Depths I Cried Out to the Stars), a new commission supported with a major grant by VIA Art Fund and co-produced with 

technical support from MAD Arts in Dania Beach. Expanding Penafiel’s cosmology, Chapter II: De Profundis Clamavi ad Astra (From the Depths I Cried Out to the Stars) marks one of the organization's largest presentations of a single artist's work in its 28 years as Miami's longest-running alternative art space.

Presented as two large-scale installations, Peñafiel’s multi-chapter work stages migration as movement between worlds—an immersive video, sound, and textile universe. 

MARE MAGNVM, first realized by the artist in 2021, also with technical production support from MAD Arts in Dania Beach, has been unfolding and continuously evolving and varying with each space it has inhabited. At Locust Projects, as part of Miami Art Week, it will be presented at an unprecedented scale and concept for its Miami premiere. Presented in a 360 degree video surround, the work depicts a stylized, monochromatic sea populated by fourteen boats carrying eighty-one figures caught in a perpetual loop. Every thirty minutes, the characters arrive back where they began. The vessels — constructed of found objects including wood, oil drums, and tires — evoke real scenes of human migration across bodies of water, both contemporary and historical. Faces are hidden behind papier-mâché masks typical of Peñafiel's native Ecuador —belonging to no single region or nationality, the figures become everywoman and everyman. The video is accompanied by the deep hum of a haunting reverberating score based upon a Latin American lullaby, that is physically felt before it is heard. 

Opening in June 2027, Chapter II: De Profundis Clamavi ad Astra (From the Depths I Cried Out to the Stars), is a major new commissioned work presented with support from VIA Art Fund with additional support from Funding Arts Network. Where MARE MAGNVM crosses the surface of the sea, De Profundis descends beneath it—an immersive multi-channel environment in which figures fall through the depths toward transformation physically and spiritually and the stars. 

On the work, Peñafiel says:
"I'm not building a body of work in the usual sense — I'm building a cosmology. What began as separate works have revealed themselves as parts of one greater system. Each presentation is a distinct configuration, and each space it inhabits transforms it. Locust Projects is where these two chapters meet the public for the first time — a threshold I've been working toward for years."

Following the two Locust chapters, Tides and Passages travels to the Orlando Museum of Art in 2028 in a fully expanded configuration, presenting both chapters together with newly produced works that reveal the connective structure of the system.

Support and Credits
Tides and Passages: Chapter I and II at Locust Projects is realized with major support from VIA Art Fund with additional support provided by Funding Arts Network and the National Endowment for the Arts. It is presented in partnership with MAD Arts (Dania Beach, FL). The artist has also received direct support from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts (Creative Research Grant) and Mosaic Art Fund in support of his practice.

ABOUT MAD Arts
MAD Arts is a museum, community hub, and laboratory for art and technology. Facilitating visionary exhibitions and projects by individuals, collectives, and companies, MAD Arts operates out of its flagship headquarters, a 50,000-square-foot space in South Florida. Exploring new models of culture and business, we support artists, creatives, and technologists with the resources of a full-service digital, marketing, advertising, and technology hub, including virtual reality and motion capture studios and manufacturing facilities. In its commitment to educational initiatives, inclusive programming, and career development, MAD Arts is grounded in the philosophy that art and technology are tools for social good and should be made accessible. Learn More.

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Edison Peñafiel (b. 1985, Guayaquil, Ecuador) is a Miami-based interdisciplinary artist working in immersive video installation, sound, and textile. His work has been presented at the USF Contemporary Art Museum (Tampa), The Ringling Museum of Art (Sarasota), The Orlando Museum of Art, Sabrina Amrani Gallery (Madrid), the Ford Foundation Gallery (New York), and Passerelle Centre d'Art Contemporain (Brest, France). Peñafiel is a recipient of the VIA Art Fund Artistic Production Grant, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Creative Research Grant, and Oolite Arts' Ellies Creator Award, among others. He is represented by Sabrina Amrani Gallery, Madrid.