By Sarah Sell, University Communications and Marketing
After a successful inaugural year on the St. Petersburg campus, the USF College of The Arts’ Contemporary Art Museum (USFCAM) GENERATOR will debut a new exhibition, MARE MAGNVM, by artist Edison Peñafiel. The life-size panoramic video installation features 14 boats crossing a sea, each with its unique collection of characters caught in a perpetual loop to reflect the struggles faced by displaced people.
The GENERATOR, an expansion of USFCAM, seeks to be an incubator of new ideas and a place for expanded artistic experimentation and programming across the Tampa Bay area.
An opening reception and artist talk for MARE MAGNVM will be held on August 24 from 11 a.m. -2 p.m. in the Harbor Hall auditorium next to the gallery space. The exhibition will be on display through October 26.
A migrant himself, Edison Peñafiel moved to the United States in 2002 to leave the political and economic instability of his native country, Ecuador.
“I believe all artwork is inherently autobiographical—a self-portrait that emerges from within. It must be deeply personal, a reflection of the artist's inner world,” said Peñafiel, who is based in Miami.
MARE MAGNVM is the second immersive installation in the Harbor Hall Gallery and part of the GENERATOR collection, which opened in 2023 with an installation by the Danish collective SUPERFLEX.
“For the second iteration by Edison Peñafiel, viewers will be engaged in a shared experience around the theme of migration. GENERATOR’s programs are designed to offer access to a new dimension of contemporary art,” said Margaret Miller, director of the USF Contemporary Art Museum.
MARE MAGNVM is a panoramic video installation featuring a stylized, monochromatic sea. Despite appearing larger than life, boats in the installation are constructed of various found objects, including wood, oil drums and tires, pointing to real-life migration scenes across bodies of water.
The name MARE MAGNVM comes from the Latin for “Great Sea,” the term the Romans used to describe the Mediterranean. The word “mare” has a complicated history and is associated with evil spirits and terrors in various cultures, including Old English and Old Irish.
MARE MAGNVM immerses viewers in the struggle of crossing borders, alerting them to a future in which rising waters may push unprecedented numbers of people away from the places they call home.
“In my work, I explore the cyclical nature of history, how events recur and resonate across time. I strip away specific temporal references by using an achromatic palette, allowing the piece to transcend its original context and become a universal representation of that event,” Peñafiel said.
MARE MAGNVM was created in 2021 and featured by Peñafiel in his first solo show in Madrid, Spain, at the Sabrina Amrani Gallery.
You can see a video of the installation here.