Here Today, Gone Tomorrow is an artist led, community-based project

designed to build collective impact around urban resilience and

environmental sustainability in the City of Hialeah through creative
placemaking, civic participation and educational programming.
 Synopsis
Here Today, Gone Tomorrow is a group exhibition that explores the
power of the arts to amplify messages of environmentalism and activism.
This theme is illustrated by the works of emerging and established Hialeah-
based and/or born artists who use a range of mediums and diverse
approaches to depict the impacts of climate change and the importance
of advancing important legislation on environmental sustainability and
urban resilience in the City of Hialeah. Through this project, our impulse is
not merely to entertain or to inform, but to stimulate action toward a more
sustainable and climate resilient Hialeah. We strive to channel activism
through the arts by curating a series of public art events, exhibitions, and
education programs that rally the residents of Hialeah and greater Miami
area around climate change and other environmental issues.
In essence, our goal is to create meaningful art experiences that
promote social change with locally-specific environmental issues and
active engagement with the local community. To further this goal, free
public programs in conjunction with the exhibit will focus on educating and
empowering the residents of Hialeah to take action on climate change.
We are currently in talks with various community organizations, including
the CLEO Institute, Catalyst Miami, Before It’s Too Late, Dream in Green,
and the Earth Ethics Institute to host a series of environmental education
and outreach programs throughout the city during the exhibit’s stay at
the Hialeah Cultural Center. Planned programs include seminars, training
workshops, and panel discussions intended to raise awareness about
climate change.
Throughout the duration of this exhibition, we will present a variety of
art and cultural programming related to themes of environmental activism.
These satellite events will continue the robust dissemination necessary
to advance our mission beyond gallery walls and into the streets. Aside
from the gallery exhibit, we plan to hold artist talks, art workshops and live
painting performances. While plans are still preliminary, we also hope to
collaborate with O,Miami on literary programs such as a public reading of
works about climate change, nature, and the environment.
 Furthermore, the exhibit’s opening reception plans to feature a dance
performance inspired by Yoruban and Afro-Cuban religious tradition. The
performance will pay homage to the Yoruban Goddess of the ocean and
seas, Yemayá. With these performances, we hope to draw attention to the
impacts associated with sea level rise such as salt-intrusion and increased
flooding. We plan to partner with the Olujimi Dance Collective headed by
MDC Professor Michelle Grant-Murray.
This project furthers endeavors to provide a platform for emerging
Miami Dade College art students to get exposure by having them share
gallery space with renowned Hialeah artists, such as Ahol Sniffs Glue, Reinier
Gamboa, Delfi Cruces and Franky Cruz. We will also partner with student
organizations such as the YES! Club and Bee Club at MDC Hialeah to build
collective impact around issues of urban resilience and environmental
sustainability in Hialeah.
Last, but certainly not least, the exhibition’s organizers will encourage
and arrange support for a comprehensive city-wide resiliency, energy and
sustainability plan consistent with Hialeah’s environmental and climate
concerns. Inspired by sustainability and resiliency plans implemented by
Miami-Dade County and municipalities throughout, the plan would include
specific measurable, realistic and timely recommendations for how the city
of Hialeah can adopt and achieve optimal green strategies similar to those of
the Resilient305 Strategy.
Partners and sponsors of the exhibit are committed to working with the
community in every way possible to elevate the issue of climate disruption
in the public discourse. We stand ready and willing to work hand-in-hand
with local leaders in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors to bring our
artistic visions to life in the form of tangible, actionable climate solutions
in the “City of Progress”. Together, and with your help, we hope to draw
upon the transformative power of the arts and the unique strength of local
partnerships to foster environmental stewardship and boost political will for
the development of effective environmental legislation and policy in Hialeah.
 Curatorial Statement

Art enriches, informs, and questions our world. Environmental art, in

particular, can be a powerful agent of positive change. Eco-art is thought-
provoking, heartfelt and resonates with the observer in ways that leaves
a lasting impact. It frames ideas with an emotional intent, that brings us
into communion with the natural world, and can motivate us to be better
stewards of our local environment and Earth as a whole. I have chosen the
City of Hialeah as the site for this exhibit because this is my home – the
birthplace of both my love of art and nature. And, more importantly to the
point, the City faces increased risks from rising sea levels, extreme weather
events and excessive heat caused by climate change.
Art has long inspired environmental activism. This project will show
that art can deal with social and environmental issues very directly by
stimulating civic life, inspiring creativity and creating connections that
uplift not just the city of Hialeah, but Earth at large. We do not pretend this
project will solve the climate crisis, but neither do we want to shy away from
the transformative potential art carries, or the scale of what is possible when
all of us choose to step out from our daily routine, and into the giant, messy
work of transforming our world.
Ultimately, HTGT is committed to nurturing the reciprocal relationship
between artists and their community—people and place—to make our
shared home a better place for all. It is our hope that this exciting and
influential collective body of work builds off the momentum of Hialeah’s
rising arts scene, whose artists are as much a natural resource as our air,
oceans, and groundwater aquifers, and like them, are invaluable assets

g
to the community. Attendees of the exhibition and events will be able to
see this beautiful city through the lens of local artists and activists: an
ecologically and socially fragile place with rich cultural heritage, creative
talent and artistic history, and—if enough people take action—an even richer
future. Don’t go missing in action.
 Work Samples
The artwork of Reinier Gamboa provides a window into an evolving reality
that nurtures the spawning of different connections. Within each work is a
need to emphasize unity in a world that may seem chaotic and fragmented,
but which is actually tied by undercurrents that are not visible to all at first
glance. The Cuban born artist currently lives and works in Hialeah.

Reinier Gamboa

Boy with Sugarglider, 2019

Charcoal pencil on paper

Delfi Cruces is recognized in the community as an artist who gives
Mother Nature a voice. Her unique style and illuminating personality have
connected her with many who see her work as the magical display of color
and emotion on canvas. She is renowned for her artistic involvement in
neighborhood rehabilitation projects in the City of Hialeah.

Delfi Cruces

In the Shadows, 2015

Oil on canvas
Despite growing up in the tropical suburbs, the artwork of Hialeah born
Rachel Lee is inspired by dark forests, cartoons, video game landscapes
and Scandinavian folklore. Her goal is to eventually create the over-grown,
colorful swamp that lives in her imagination for all to experience.

Rachel Lee

Gone Away, 2020

Mixed media on paper

Born in the Dominican Republic and raised by wolves in Hialeah, Franky
Cruz is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice has led him to experiment
and collaborate with plants, crystallization, and cycles in the flow of water,
as well as found human and organic objects, whilst observing, and raising
the beautiful, winged insects and collecting their emergence secretions
onto watercolor paper.

Franky Cruz

Sixhundredten, 2017-2020

Butterfly meconium secretions from multiple species on watercolor paper

Hialeah native Ahol Sniffs Glue often draws inspiration from the urban
environment and systems of society which dehumanize its inhabitants.
Ahol’s unique yet thematically connected “Cellular Fuckery” collection of
collages is filled with imagery related to Miami – a city full sublime natural
beauty yet many environmental issues.

Ahol Sniffs Glue

Cellular Fuckery, 2017

Digital collage
Josh Ritchie is a South Florida based photographer who began his
professional career in 1998 as a newspaper staff photographer covering
the daily life of the people in his community. He has worked with the Sun
Sentinel and the Miami Herald covering all things Miami.

Josh Ritchie

Untitled, 2020

Photograph of flood in Hialeah, FL