Intervention of 2.215 m2 in two 11.300 m3 water tanks during the O, Miami poetry festival. “Finding my home in every voice I hear” speaks of the nostalgia of the emigrant, of those who have their roots far from the place where they live, but also of gratitude towards the place to which they now belong and where they feel part of a community. The intervention seeks to radically transform the daily environment of the students of the institute, who, from the sports facilities, live closely with these two concrete masses.

DESIGN

Although they do not belong to Miami Beach Senior High, the tanks are part of the daily landscape of the students, teachers and staff of the center. Therefore, we considered that the starting point for generating the designs should be the students themselves as the main recipients of the work. This starting point was several poetry dynamics carried out by O, Miami with different groups of students between 15 and 17 years old from Miami Senior High School. The result was more than 200 poems of gratitude, analysis of daily reality or personal experiences, which helped us discover Miami through the eyes of those who live it. We worked on the verse “Finding my home in every voice that I hear”, taken from the poem written by Valentina Mena, a 15-year-old girl of Argentine origin, recently settled in Miami.

In a place so marked by migration, we have understood the two tanks as the representation of two places that are close but separate, equal but with a different essence. We seek to emphasize the proximity of what unites us and the nuances of what makes us unique. The design is based on the words HOME and HOGAR; we created a modular design, without a beginning or an end, based on typographic elements of both words, with which to wrap the perimeter of each tank, generating a chromatic background on which we finish by writing the complete verse.

Fragments of the design of the first tank.

Fragments of the design of the second tank.

POEM BY VALENTINA MENA

This is my first place in a new reality
where it received me but made me miss my old me
While time passes it feels alright
Afternoons are humid and sun hits my skin
Riding my bike, watching the green in the neighborhood,
and the blue reflected in the ocean
I'm living the music of them
and recording moments so I won't forget
but sometimes it's hard to adapt
But people here feel like a family's part
finding my home in every voice that I hear,
Walking down the streets, wondering people's lives
I know that I'm not alone, that my fears are shared
and that we are all searching for the best next alternative possible.
That's what comforts me at the end of the day.