LA ESQUINITA (Little Corner)
The first major solo exhibition by Miami-born artist and musician Tara Long.
Transforming the gallery's interior and exterior into a surreal "Sweets & Souvenirs" shop of over 500 miniature sculptures, Long stages a candy-coated critique of consumerism and cultural decay.
Visitors move from a playful storefront into an immersive dreamscape—a teetering, 20-foot cake under a glowing moon lightbox—accompanied by a haunting original score.
The installation culminates in a lush "swamp-scape" where nature overtakes the artificial, evoking Florida's ecological and cultural precarity.
Curated by Executive Director Lorie Mertes, "LA ESQUINITA" blurs fantasy and critique, tracing Miami's transformation from sugar fields to tech hub while inviting reflection on indulgence, loss, and reclamation.
La Esquinita is commissioned by Locust Projects and supported in part with a grant from Funding Arts Network.
Artist Statement
LA ESQUINITA is a sugar-laced parable about power.
Sugar—once Florida's economic engine—remains a potent symbol of over-indulgence, colonization and bodily harm. I merge that history with contemporary tech-led displacement: both promise progress, both leave chasms in place of community.
Visitors experience three acts:
1. Facade & Storefront (Seduction) – A corner-store mural blends bodega graphics with dripping icing. Inside, flawless candy-merch seduces buyers.
2. Backstage (Exposure) – A hidden door reveals consumption's darker appetite. A monumental cake resembles a toppled condo; performers embody female archetypes—Sweetheart, Siren, Fury—surfacing from its cavities.
3. Speakeasy (Collapse / Rebirth) - The rear lounge, overrun by swamp life, underscores nature's primacy and resilience.
Narrative threads connect macro (land use, capital) to micro (gut bacteria, gendered "sweetness") while asserting that progress, like sugar, ferments.
Tara Long, September 2025
Artist Bio
Tara Long (b. 1984, Miami) transforms vernacular and popular iconography into immersive allegories. Raised in Miami's cultural cross-currents—and a survivor of personal tragedy—Long's practice spans installation, performance, and sound, exploring how communities metabolize trauma and change. Previous work includes underground left-field pop persona Poorgrrrl and collaborative exhibitions across South Florida. She has shown work and performed at Moma PS1, ICA and the PAMM in Miami. Long holds a studio at Bakehouse Art Complex. LA ESQUINITA is her first major solo institutional exhibition.