What's in Your Container?

What’s in Your Container? How do we hold our histories? What structures sustain us? And, howcan we transform grief and loss into acts of preservation, care, and renewed community?

Diaspora Vibe Cultural Arts Incubator, Inc. (DVCAI) invites audiences to experience its curatorial initiative, The Container Project, at DVCAI at Barry University. The exhibition includes a six-month run of activations and interactive works from November 20, 2025, to April 17, 2026. Curated by DVCAI Founder, Curator Rosie Gordon-Wallace, based in Miami, and independent curator and creative wellness strategist Breeana Thorne, based in Los Angeles, the trans-coastal, transcontinental, and Caribbean diasporic project poses the question, “What’s in Your Container?” The shipping container—a vessel of movement, transportation, and memory—serves as a lens through which we explore the personal and collective histories of containment.

For Caribbean communities, containers and barrels symbolize both migration and support: they carry essentials, treasures, and the intangible legacies of family, culture, and resilience.

These structures, physical and metaphorical, hold the weight of memory, trauma, care, and joy, reflecting the ways we navigate histories shaped by colonialism, displacement, and global exchange.

The works on view serve as sites of refuge—both physical and emotional. In response, artists, turn inward, using their creative practice as containers for memory, grief, harmony, and regeneration. Students and visitors are invited to consider their own vessels of memory.

ABOUT DVCAI SPACE AT BARRY UNIVERSITY

The contemporary arts programming at DVCAI at Barry University is presented by the non-profit Diaspora Vibe Cultural Arts Incubator (DVCAI) in partnership with the Barry University Institute for Immigration Studies and the Monsignor William Barry Library to benefit the community. Special thanks to the Barry University community and the support of Victor Romano, PhD, Vice Provost for Student Success & Undergraduate Studies, Giselle Elgarresta Rios, MM, DMA, Endowed Chair of the Monsignor Bryan O. Walsh Institute for Immigration Studies, and Vivica Smith Pierre, MLIS, PhD, Director of Library Services, Monsignor William Barry Library. With appreciation for the talents of exhibition designer Danielle Coates, visual identity designer Izia Lindsay, and photographer Roy A. Wallace.

ABOUT DVCAI:

Diaspora Vibe Cultural Arts Incubator, Inc. is a virtual artist space, dedicated to promoting, nurturing, and cultivating the vision and diverse creativity of emerging artists from the Caribbean and Latin American Diaspora, through experimentation, exhibitions, artists-in-residence programs, international cultural exchanges, and dialog in contemporary art. www.dvcai.org. DVCAI partners with organizations to enhance residency experiences in the Caribbean region, nationally, and internationally. For more information, please visit www.dvcai.org and follow our activities at https://www.instagram.com/dvcai/ https://twitter.com/DiasporaVibe.

DVCAI is generously supported by The Mellon Foundation, with support from the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade County Mayor, and the Board of County Commissioners. DVCAI’s work is sponsored in part by the State of Florida Division of Arts and Culture, with support from The Ford Foundation, South Arts, ArtsHere, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, CreArte, The Jorge M. Pérez Family Foundation at The Miami Foundation, The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC), Readytex Art Gallery, The Garner Foundation, The Hongs, National Performance Network (NPN), Alternate ROOTS, The Rhythm Foundation, and the Betsy Hotel.

Opening Week and Performance: Please RSVP on the DVCAI website.

Thursday, November 20, 2025, Opening Event, 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm 

Thursday, November 20, Featured Performance, 7:00 pmSaturday,

November 22, 2025, Performance and Artist Talk, 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm

 Miami Art Week Events and Hours: December 1 - December 7, 2025

The exhibition will be on view during the Library's regular hours.

Monday, December 1, 2025, Performance at 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm

Tuesday, December 2, 2025, Performance at 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm