“Never Ending Gardens” Highlights Black Experiences at Frost Art Museum

Jonathan Fields/Contributing Writer 

“Looking back helps us to go forward,” said artist Terence Price II, speaking at the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum for the opening of his photography exhibition, “Never Ending Gardens.”

His black and white photos, which are on display alongside a few short films and mixed-media works, recall a feeling of family snapshot nostalgia.

The collection documents Carol City, a northern Miami-Dade County neighborhood that is now more commonly referred to as Miami Gardens.

A world away from the luxury yachts and jet skis of Miami Beach or the luxury condos and penthouses in Brickell, Carol City is often overlooked by tourists and Miami locals alike. 

“The day my grandfather passed or a few days after, when everyone was visiting the house to pay their respects, I started looking back through photos and family albums and seeing the house that raised me,” said Price, explaining the inspiration for the “Never Ending Gardens” exhibit. “I started thinking how this whole issue of gentrification, well, this was my stance against it. It was a way of showing that we existed, that we were here.”

The “Carol Flea Market” is shown as one large black and white print photograph and also a mixed media work. Once a vibrant hub for local crafts and wares, the property has now been redeveloped into a shopping center for chain retailers.

“As soon as you walked in you would be hit by the smell of nail polish and then all the different food and everything,” Price said. “Now it’s a Burlington Coat Factory–and this is Miami. Why do we even need a Burlington Coat Factory?”

Activism in the African American community is also documented in Price’s work. The exhibit includes photos taken at protest events in Miami, including the Trayvon Martin Peace Walk and the Guns Down Bikes Up activist ride.

One of the works on display hauntingly frames a make-shift shrine of teddy bears, stuffed animals and flowers. 

Reading about the death of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old African American boy who was shot and killed in in 2014 in Cleveland, Ohio while holding a toy gun, was part of the inspiration to address issues of gun violence within his own community, Price explained.

Although Price’s work is not afraid to tackle tough social issues, it is the children, the grandparents and the people living through each day in Carol City that are at the center of the narrative. 

The struggles, the triumphs, but most of all the memories that are kept along the way are at the core of what motivates the young artist.

Price said that some of the inspiration for his critically acclaimed style comes from “sankofa,” a West African word that means “It is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten.”

“I get a stronger sense of my existence from looking back,” said Price, speaking on how he drew inspiration from his grandfather’s photography and home movies. 

Journalist Nadege Green, who covers social justice issues for local National Public Radio affiliate station WLRN, led a panel discussion at the exhibit’s opening on Thursday, Feb. 6.

Faren Humes, a young up-and-coming Miami artist and filmmaker who is a native of Liberty City, sat alongside Price for the speaker event, which was well attended by art students, faculty and community members.

Humes’s latest short film “Liberty” has been met with widespread acclaim both from art critics and her peers within the community of African American artists.

The quest for identity within the complexities of the African American experience are at the core of both Price’s “Never Ending Gardens” and Humes’s “Liberty”.

Both artists’ works take a gritty, no-holds-barred approach in depicting their urban surroundings, leaving audiences with more questions than answers.

When it comes to their photography and their visual storytelling, neither of them are afraid to bend the rules.

“I have always liked the people who are irreverent to the rules,” Humes said. “Whatever the disciple is, I usually am attracted to that as an artist.”

“Liberty,” which is available for viewing on Vimeo, uses Liberty City residents as actors and is unscripted.

The residents’ casual conversations, captured almost as if by accident, seem to immerse the audience in an exploration of everyday life fraught with change and uncertainty amidst the colliding tides of poverty, gun violence and gentrification.

Terence Price II’s “Never Ending Gardens” is on display at the Frost Art Museum until Sunday, Apr. 26.

Price’s works are on display as part of the gallery’s Martin Luther King Exhibition Series, part of FIU’s month-long Annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemorative Celebration.