Deering Estate Arts In Deep Exhibition Catalogue | Page 6

DESCRIPTION OF NEA PROJECT - NOTES
Background to the Festival of the Arts and the NEA Grant
The Deering Estate Festival of the Arts (formerly SoBay
Festival of the Arts) was created in 2006 to raise awareness
of the visual, literary, and performing arts in the South
Miami-Dade community and to promote the missions of
partnering organizations. An annual themed exhibition
brings together local artists, arts leaders, and community
arts organizations to present events that appeal to a wide
range of audiences of all ages, abilities, and interests.
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The Festival is both a community-wide engagement as well
as a culmination residency exhibition that focuses on the
Deering Estate at Cutler as both a hub for environmental
education as well as for science and arts collaborations and
discourse. In Deep, funded in part by a National Endowment
for the Arts Grant, featured eco- and environmental- artwork
by South Florida-based artists. Eco-art is a subset of a broad
category of environmental art which combines aspects of
contemporary art with the myriad relationships depicted
between people and nature.
From the moment visitors entered the Deering Estate, they
were able to follow their own path through historic and natural
settings to environmental interventions and interactions that
were integrated into the landscape, both man-made and

natural. Guests were challenged experience, explore, and
engage in works that ran the gamut from upcycled materials
to activist statements, from sound installations to earth
works.

Thank you to our Artists and
Partner Organizations:
Over 100 indoor and outdoor installations and participatory
artworks were featured:
• 27 literary artists
• 61 visual artists
• 122 performing artists
Curator and Mentor Artist:
Lucinda Linderman

Participating Artists included:
Deering Estate Artist in Residence Program: Michael Gellatly,
Robert Sparrow Jones, Natalya Laskis, Mia Leonin, Nancy
Martini, Gerry Stecca, Aida Tejada.