Locust Projects is proud to present The LAB (Locust Art Builders). Now in its ninth year,  The LAB brings together a diverse group of high school-aged aspiring artists from schools across Miami-Dade County for a four-week Summer Art Intensive for Teens where they learn to build an exhibition from scratch. Under the direction of Miami-based contemporary visual artists, Monica Lopez de Victoria, Francesco Lo Castro and Maitesojune Urrechega, The LAB is a unique, hands-on opportunity that allows student artists to widen their perspectives, gain new skills, connect with their peers, and meet local artists, collectors and arts professionals from throughout South Florida.

The artist-led instruction at Locust Projects is complemented by guided field trips to local arts institutions and artist studios, as well as a series of talks by invited speakers from the Miami art community and a special Mentor Breakfast where students get to meet and greet artists, teachers, area arts professionals and other community arts mentors. All students receive full scholarships to attend The LAB. The LAB experience culminates with a public opening reception for the student-created exhibition, where students’ parents, teachers and friends are invited to celebrate alongside the students and Miami’s art community.

Each year’s exhibition evolves as a unique and timely reflection of the current issues and ideas impacting youth today. The title of the show, The nauseating dream danced gingerly in the Volkswagen is drawn from a game of exquisite corpse, a chance-based game most notably used by the Surrealists in which a collection of words or images is collaboratively assembled. The whimsical title is meant to play on ideas of originality, authorship, fact vs. fiction, and big data, questioning if certain concepts can really be owned. Through the exhibition the students hope to bring new life to preexisting concepts and ideas and examine the relationship between a rapidly fluctuating world and a generation of teenagers trying to adapt. 

Participating Student Artists: Nataly Ballon, Liz Cardero, Paula Carrizo, Miles Chestler, Katherine Cifuentes, Carlton Daley, Claire Joseph, Antonella Labrozzi, Katherine Luna, Mireia Molins, Gonzalo Peña, Chloe Sadorge, Mira Sadorge, M. Jamesly Saint-Louis, Marina Velis

Schools represented: Design and Architecture Senior High, Dillard Center for the Arts, Hialeah Senior High, Miami Beach Senior High, Palmer Trinity School, New World School of the Arts, TERRA Environmental Research Institute. 

Student intern: Daniela Cruz, University of Central Florida; Student Videographer: Michael Vega, Design and Architecture Senior High School.

Locust Art Builders (LAB) is made possible through lead support from the Hillsdale Fund Inc. Additional LAB funding is provided by the Kirk Foundation, Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs, the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade Mayor and Board of County Commissioners, Vhernier, and donors to the Team LAB Annual Education Fund.