The Museum of Contemporary American Art (MOCAA) will present, beginning January 30, an exhibition devoted to the work of artists with diverse forms of disability, conceived as part of the museum’s ongoing commitment to inclusion, cultural accessibility, and the strengthening of its relationship with the community — mindful that, as José Mijares once warned, if one is ever to survive in the swamp, one must learn to befriend the crocodile. The project forms part of MOCAA’s broader efforts to expand spaces of participation and visibility for historically underrepresented creators, recognizing functional diversity as a fundamental dimension of both human experience and contemporary artistic practice.
Beyond a thematic or testimonial approach, the exhibition proposes a contemporary reading of the place occupied by bodies, difference, and non-normative biographies within the art system. From this perspective, the project deliberately avoids assistential frameworks in order to foreground the aesthetic, symbolic, and conceptual quality of the works presented.
Among the participants is Maggie Pernas, a self-taught artist who, after confronting a severe physical disability, has developed a sustained artistic practice that today enters into dialogue with the production of several of her granddaughters, some of whom also live with different forms of disability. This shared creative experience brings family transmission, memory, and collaboration to the foreground as central axes of the project.
The exhibition brings together newly created works in a range of media, inspired by The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch. This historical reference operates as an open symbolic territory, where notions of fragility, desire, resistance, and transcendence converge, reinterpreted through contemporary perspectives.
The opening reception will take place on Friday, January 30, 2026, from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., at MOCAA (12063 SW 131st Avenue, Miami, FL 33186). The exhibition will remain on view through February 27, 2026, concluding with a special presentation by the Area Stage Inspire Theater Project, with choreography by Nicole Becker.
At a moment when debates surrounding inclusion and accessibility are gaining renewed urgency within the cultural field, this exhibition reaffirms MOCAA’s commitment to a museological practice that understands diversity not as an exception, but as an essential component of the social fabric and of the language of contemporary art.
