Locust Projects presents LA ESQUINITA (Little Corner), premiering the first major solo show by Miami artist and musician Tara Long. In an all-encompassing installation, Long transforms Locust Projects’ exterior and lobby into a quirky and surreal “Sweets & Souvenirs" shop filled with more than 500 tempting mini sculptures
for sale. 

The exhibition premieres at Locust Projects major annual fundraiser on Friday, November 14 at the Delight & Devour Annual Benefit Dinner honoring Sarah Arison and celebrating Tara Long’s first major solo show premiere. The exhibition opens to the public on Saturday, November 15 and is the featured Miami Art Week exhibition with Delight in the Mire: A Miami Art Week Meet the Artist Party and Performance on Saturday, Dec 6 | 7-10pm.

As part of Locust Projects’ commitment to supporting experimental art and ideas, it has turned over its entire space inside and out to Long’s creative all-encompassing vision. From the exterior “bodega” signage, visitors are led from the “Sweets & Souvenirs” shop embodying Miami’s seductive facades to a secret door behind the cashier counter leads into a "grand hall." In the Main Gallery a towering, teetering 20-foot wide by 12-ft tall cake serves as a stage illuminated by a massive moon lightbox hung overhead. 

Here, darker intonations of decay are revealed, hinting at bitter truths. Sounds of a 20-minute ethereal and melancholy musical score directed by Long, produced exclusively for the exhibition by Illangelo & Angelfire, plays on an infinite loop. The sugar‑coated spectacle culminates in an immersive, audio‑visual “swamp‑scape,” a humid tableau where sawgrass and mangroves creep across the furnishings to suggest nature’s inevitable repossession of Florida’s over‑developed coast. 

Long—known in her earlier incarnation as Poorgrrrl, the underground pop provocateur who ran Miami’s legendary DIY club and championed a wave of boundary‑pushing sound artists—now taps that same nightlife lineage by inviting a consortium of the city’s most elusive creators into a pop‐up speakeasy inside the final room. Open on Friday and Saturday nights of Miami Art Week (and during public‑access weekends), the bar doubles as a refuge for reflection and a stage for unannounced performances, giving visitors one last taste of decadence before the swamp closes in.

Blurring the line between confection and commentary, LA ESQUINITA draws sharp parallels between Florida’s Big Sugar land grab in the early 20th century with today’s goldrush-like influx of Big Tech capital into Miami — contemplating how both industries sweeten – and hollow – local culture and impact South Florida’s landscape.

Tara Long: LA ESQUINITA (Little Corner) is commissioned and organized by Locust Projects and curated by Executive Director Lorie Mertes.

Long’s Locust Projects exhibition, her first major solo show, was selected from 650 open call applications for the Main Gallery by a review panel including Juan Roselione-Valadez, Director of the Rubell Museum and past exhibiting artists Rafael Domenech (2023) and Rosario Marquardt of R+R (2000).

Tara Long’s exhibition is presented in part with support from Funding Arts Network.