TARA LONG

Me and my two babies—Fox Potter and a solo exhibition: 🦩LA ESQUINITA🦩 A sugar-glazed parable about power, pleasure and decay They both took a village to grow 🌱💚💕 LA ESQUINITA is presented by Curator Lorie Mertes (@loriemertes ) at Locust Projects (@locustprojects ) supported in part by @fundingartsnetwork , Ego Death & @davidsinopoli For Black Friday, consider buying LOCAL 😈 grab a gift from our shop, website 🔗 in ☣️ ⬆️⬆️⬆️ use code: blackfriday for 20% off!! 😎 If you haven’t come to see us yet, consider coming to watch the 2nd (and maybe last!) performence of “Delight in the Mire” - a performance I created to unravel on and around the giant cake stage! SATURDAY DEC 6th @ 7PM 🎭Cast Maiden: Anjuli Castano @phatbellyy Mother: Nery Rodriguez @palmpendulum Crone: Teresa Liberatore @lab.ballerina innocence: Marianna Angel @soywater Anxiety: misael soto @misaelsoto HERO: Marilyn Loddi @hushfell Villian: Shira Abergel @shemakesmusic 🛠️Crew Wardrobe: Nichole Chimenti @nichole_luminescence Make-up/ SFX/ hair: Layla Bessiso @layla.b.mua Creative Director: Yamil Rodriguez @yamil_escobosa Production manager: Suzy Rieger @suzyriex 🎶Exclusive score for performance created by : Illangelo + Angelfire @illangelo & @angelfir.e 1. 📸 by Alexa Caravia @ac2565 2. 🎥 by by Alexa Caravia @ac2565 with Zusel Escriba @steadyhand.films 3. 📸 by Logan Fazio @loganfazio / Tabloid 📰 by [NAME] Publications @name_publications 4. 📸 by Logan Fazio @loganfazio / CAKE by Erica Cruz @nummiesbakeshop 5. 📸 by Pedro Wazzan @pedrowazzan / Mural 🎨 by Serge Toussaint @toussaint.serge 6. Through 8. 📸 by Pedro Wazzan @pedrowazzan 8. “Severe Pain” one of 6 terrazzo faces in the piece “Pain Assesment Scale” fabricated by @gsardone 11. Through 15. 📸 by Logan Fazio @loganfazio 16. & 17. 📸 by @worldredeye 18. Our favorite sponsor @vickybakery 📸 by Logan Fazio @loganfazio 19. 🎥 by Alexa Caravia @ac2565 20. Tom Mickelson’s cherry doors!! 🍒 I’m overwhelmed by the love and support of my community- instagram is telling me the post is too long lol so I’ll put my thank you’s in the first comment 😮‍💨

A surreal, sugar-soaked universe took over Miami Art Week as @locustprojects unveiled @taralong.overdraft.fee ’s most ambitious installation yet. 🎂✨ At the Delight in the Mire Artist Party, more than 500 guests stepped into Long’s LA ESQUINITA—a full-building transformation that turned Locust Projects into a vivid, crumbling dreamscape where fantasy, satire, and spectacle collided. From @toussaint.serge ’s hand-painted mural façade to the monumental decaying cake centerpiece, the space immersed visitors in a world that was equal parts corner store nostalgia and operatic fever dream. The night surged with performances, including an encore of Long’s own large-scale production, a surprise pop-up of nilor studio’s Cannes-debuted tAxI installation, and electrifying activations by @poncilicreacion , Lydia Lunch, Camila Alvarez, and Nick Léon. Between live acts and the artist-built Mosquito Club speakeasy—complete with cocktails, @topochicousa , Drip, and @vickybakery cake—guests roamed a living ecosystem of art, sound, and community. As midnight hit, LA ESQUINITA stood as both a defining Miami Art Week moment and Locust Projects’ largest undertaking yet, underscoring the nonprofit’s 27-year commitment to championing groundbreaking Miami artists on the global stage.

You know… opening a portal in your body and birthing a baby (no matter which method) is completely and utterly insane. Let alone the freak show of postpartum, the labor (of love) that is breastfeeding, the hormonal rollercoaster —- the shit no one told you that you never hear of till it happens to you (WTF diastasis recti sounds like a butthole disease) My baby is 8months old, I’ve lost 37lbs and have 40 left to go (WTF?! How?! Idk u do the math ☠️) I honestly feel like a completely different person - but at the same time there are echos of my past self, reminders & shadows. I miss playing music, a lot. I want to love and embrace this evolved and extended-play version of me- my baby is the most precious little demon he was worth every second of the madness I’ve endured… but god damn. ANYWAY LOL - thank you for letting me be myself all these years. PS @_donzii is hands down still my favorite band in Miami (along with @hollyhunt_band ) and @jennabalfe is a fucking legend and I love my friends, thank you for coming on this journey with me!! #notdeadyet #leavemomsalone but also #supportyourmoms ! @davidsinopoli @iiipoints @factorytown_ @yamil_escobosa @michael_michael_arcos @jennabalfe @dennisbfuller @leah_the_creator @heather_from_the_block @_clairity @almitiyas I LOVE YOU!

🎬NEW Rewriting the Story — Tara Long Season 2 | Episode 03 ➡️What happens when art becomes the only way forward? For Tara Long, creating wasn’t about selling. It was about survival and building something beyond the story she was born into. A multidisciplinary artist working across installation and large-scale production, she shares the reality of sustaining a creative practice in Miami — from grants and budgets to reputation and grit. 🎥 Watch the full episode of Entrepreneurial Spotlight on YouTube. Link in bio and stories ! @fiucarta @fiu_carta_dean @taralong.overdraft.fee #CARTACreativeForcesAtWork

“I hate to see her go, but I love to watch her leave. I keep her runnin’ back and forth, soccer team” - Lil Wayne TARA LONG [MIAMI] So Long Soirée and Sweets & Souvenir Shop Fire Sale 3-6pm Join us to say farewell to LA ESQUINITA over cocktails (dry or damp!) in The Mosquito Club featuring tunes and daytime dancing. Take a piece of the show home - last chance to shop the ceramics that make a perfectly sweet gift in time for Valentine’s! @taralong.overdraft.fee got us runnnnnin’ for that cake 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

LA ESQUINITA — ART WEEK 12/5 & 12/6 SCHEDULE Friday Dec 5 4-6 PM → BRAIN ROT: “The Internet and the End” • panel talk inside the exhibition • Moderated by cultural critic Whitney Mallet and featuring David Lisbon, Curatorial Assistant at the Whitney Museum, and Bri Griffin, Community Designer at Rhizome • Free, seating limited • Catered by Vicky Bakery • Mosquito Club (speakeasy) open for Happy Hour 4-7PM 7-12 PM → Mosquito Club (speakeasy open all night) • durational performance by Marilyn Loddi • musical Performances by Bebas Neu, Rick Guerre, DJ Manni Cann, Lien Theresa, Reese & Shanti Saturday Dec 6 7-12 PM → Mosquito Club 7:30 PM → Delight in the Mire (cake performance - one night only) • music by Nick León • performances by Poncili Creación, Lydia Lunch, Camila Alvarez • Vicky Bakery catering • El Taxi pop-up installation Location: Locust Projects, 297 NE 67th St, Miami Exhibition: LA ESQUINITA (open through January) 🎨🖼️ Art Week Graphics created by: @suzyriex 😘✨

Dinner is served and oh how sweet it was 🍰  A dinner where guests stepped directly into Tara Long’s world — including the giant 20-ft by 12-ft cake she created as part of her first major solo exhibition LA ESQUINITA at @locustprojects Tara transformed the space into an operatic sugar-spun world — illuminated by a massive moon, underscored by an ethereal 20-minute score, and brought to life by performances from local artists and @youngarts alumni. @lebasquecatering crafted a menu that flowed with her story, each course echoing the journey she created: Temptation → Indulgence → Surrender. Huge thanks to Tara for the imagination and scale of this project — it was a privilege to be a small part of it. Videography by: @lumen_opus With thanks to our collaborators: @atlaspartyrentals Bubble Event Furniture @differentlookrentals @eventoutfitters

Borrowing tools, techniques, and aesthetics from advertising, video, and new media art, Sugar, Sugar weaponizes AI to expose histories of extraction. Using custom-built workflows designed to reclaim technologies from corporate monopolies, nilor collages archival documentation of sugar's violent past—plantation slavery, land theft, industrial brutality—with AI-generated media that refuses to let us bury the truth. The three works operate in parallel: sugar's centuries of commodifying bodies for profit mirror Big Tech's extraction of data and labor disguised as innovation. In Cupcake, a cupcake takes an eternity to collapse into rot, and reveal the blood-soaked production beneath its gloss. This isn't art about AI, or a glorified tech demo, its resistance built with reclaimed tools, countering extractive capitalism by seizing the means of production, and showing how we can use these tools in artistic ways to combat the force-feeding of dopamine slop. nilor suggests that we can still use these tools to create critical commentaries and hopeful alternatives to the blind faith of the technophile and the stalwart resistance of the opt-out technophobe. Created in collaboration with @taralong.overdraft.fee for @locustprojects Locust Projects, 297 NE 67th St, Miami, FL Until January 17th 2026 tAxI: miAmI - December 5th & 6th - DM to book

Borrowing tools, techniques, and aesthetics from advertising, video, and new media art, Sugar, Sugar weaponizes AI to expose histories of extraction. Using custom-built workflows designed to reclaim technologies from corporate monopolies, nilor collages archival documentation of sugar's violent past—plantation slavery, land theft, industrial brutality—with AI-generated media that refuses to let us bury the truth. The three works operate in parallel: sugar's centuries of commodifying bodies for profit mirror Big Tech's extraction of data and labor disguised as innovation. In tAxI: miAmI, an AI taxi driver preserves the human connections that autonomous futures are designed to erase in the name of convenience. This isn't art about AI, or a glorified tech demo, its resistance built with reclaimed tools, countering extractive capitalism by seizing the means of production, and showing how we can use these tools in artistic ways to combat the force-feeding of dopamine slop. nilor suggests that we can still use these tools to create critical commentaries and hopeful alternatives to the blind faith of the technophile and the stalwart resistance of the opt-out technophobe. Created in collaboration with @taralong.overdraft.fee and @toussaint.serge for @locustprojects Locust Projects, 297 NE 67th St, Miami, FL Until January 17th 2026 tAxI: miAmI - December 5th & 6th - DM to book

Borrowing tools, techniques, and aesthetics from advertising, video, and new media art, Sugar, Sugar weaponizes AI to expose histories of extraction. Using custom-built workflows designed to reclaim technologies from corporate monopolies, nilor collages archival documentation of sugar's violent past—plantation slavery, land theft, industrial brutality—with AI-generated media that refuses to let us bury the truth. The three works operate in parallel: sugar's centuries of commodifying bodies for profit mirror Big Tech's extraction of data and labor disguised as innovation. In Sugar, Sugar, seductive advertisements loop endlessly, and selfie moments implicate viewers standing inside the marketing materials. This isn't art about AI, or a glorified tech demo, its resistance built with reclaimed tools, countering extractive capitalism by seizing the means of production, and showing how we can use these tools in artistic ways to combat the force-feeding of dopamine slop. nilor suggests that we can still use these tools to create critical commentaries and hopeful alternatives to the blind faith of the technophile and the stalwart resistance of the opt-out technophobe. Created in collaboration with @taralong.overdraft.fee for @locustprojects Locust Projects, 297 NE 67th St, Miami, FL Until January 17th 2026 tAxI: miAmI - December 5th & 6th - DM to book

We’re honored to be featured in The @miamiherald Art Week Magazine as part of a major story celebrating the programs cultivating Miami’s next generation of artists! 🌴📰✨The article spotlights how spaces like Locust Projects are shaping the city’s creative future—supporting experimentation, nurturing emerging voices, and making room for bold, ambitious work to thrive. Huge thanks for shining a light on the artists transforming Miami’s cultural landscape, including Tara Long’s vibrant LA ESQUINITA takeover at Locust Projects. 💛🎂🌈 Miami Art Week Events:  Fri, Dec 5 | 4–6pm
🧠 TALK | Brain Rot 3: the internet and the end
 A conversation digging into the aesthetics + cultural impact of “brainrot” content Moderated by cultural critic @whitneymallett and featuring David Lisbon, Curatorial Assistant at the @whitneymuseum , and Bri Griffin, Community Designer at Rhizome (@rhizomedotorg ). Saturday Dec 6, 7–10pm
🧁 Delight in the Mire Miami Art Week Meet the Artist Party!
Don’t miss an encore of Delight in the Mire plus a special pop-up by @nilor.studio featuring tAxI, their multi-sensory installation that recently premiered at Cannes Film Festival! Also performing are Poncili Creación (@poncilicreacion ), Lydia Lunch (@lydia.lunch.official ), Camila Alvarez, and  Nick Léon (@nicknoexit ). 🍹 @mosquitoclub.buzz open Fri–Sat ‘til midnight All events are FREE and open to the public! See you there 👀 
📍 Visit LA ESQUINITA Tues–Sat, 11–5pm @taralong.overdraft.fee #MiamiArtWeek #MiamiHerald #artbasel LocustProjects TaraLong MiamiArts ContemporaryArt MakeArtHappen