Echos of Souls – Davidson’s Building 

The motion produced by vehicles in the streets facing the Davidson building, create real time computer generated baroque animations, inspired by my caribbean cultural & flora heritage. They express my reflexion on environmental flux, global migrations, and identity. And are a tribute to both the victims of the Covid Pandemic and of social injustices. 

I used tropical leaves and petals to create flying creatures inspired by my island’s fauna. Bird’s flapping wings, jellyfish’s graceful movements, dancing leaves in the wind, hurricane’s swirling rotations and sea wave’s rippling effects are amongst many animation references. My creatures are a reminder of the devastating consequences of global warming and of our Caribbean islands’s fragility facing major natural catastrophes such as Cat5 hurricanes.. 

My aim is to transform Davidson’s building facade in a monumental beacon of hope. Especially in these challenging times. I wanted this diptych to be a symbol of rebirth, a symbol of change for all those facing trauma. 

Thanks to motion tracking technology the car’s movements are filmed in real time. The data gathered is used to animate the flying creatures randomly. In this new work the program created with the Isadora software acts like a bridge between nature, science, technology, heritage and art.

Echos of My Skin – Actor’s Playhouse

The second part of the diptych focuses on a more personal human interaction. It acts like a meditative healing space where the visitors can either contemplate or interact with the random computer-generated virtual landscape project on the Actor’s Playhouse wall. 

This innovative video art speaks to the body, to the soul, to memory. Like the large-scale artwork on the Davidson’s Building, it speaks about migration flux, cultural heritage and identity. It’s also a tribute to cultural resistance to all social minorities and migrants living in Miami. 

The Actor’s Playhouse inspired me: a celebration of spirits, a celebration of the unheard, of the forgotten, through the living, through their families of all origins. 

For these reasons, I wanted to “Mashup” (creole for: include, mix up, mix together) a few audio testimonials recorded by Miami’s diverse communities. They were asked to share their family’s migration dreams and expectations before moving to Miami. Their stories will be triggered by the visitors’ motions and position in space while creating a night stars rhizomatic melting pot. 

The spirits of those we lost will be symbolized by butterflies. As in many indigenous cultures, they symbolize the spirit leaving the body. These flying entities will be imagined by a group of children from Miami. Their artworks will be integrated and animated digitally. The visitor’s motion-captured by infrared cameras will liberate them in real-time. 

It’s important that future generations craft these butterflies because it marks generational feedback. Creating a new cycle while breaking the old. 

Achieving this diptych exhibition has never been more important at this point of my career. As a black artist from a colonized french island seeking higher-pitched echos to push my multicultural creole voice beyond the boundaries of the horizon.

David Gumbs is an award winning interdisciplinary artist from the Caribbean island of Saint-Martin, based in Martinique. 

Recent works include the Currents New Media digital festival in Santa Fe, and the touring exhibition Relational Undercurrents which is a major survey of Latin American and Caribbean Art in the United States. The show opened at MOLAA Los Angeles and has travelled to the Portland Museum of Art, the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, and the Wallach Gallery New York. Select works also shown at the TVE Caribbean visual Exchange in Melbourne, Australia. In 2017, Gumbs was part of the Prizm Art Fair during Miami Art week, the Jamaica Biennal, and won the National Street Art contest for the islands of Martinique and Saint-Martin. 

In 2016, he is awarded the Davidoff Art Initiative Residency in Beijing China, where he exhibited at the World Art Museum / China Millenium Monument. He also exhibited in Digital at the National Gallery of Jamaica. Other exhibitions include Video Islands, New York and the opening ceremony of the Memorial Acte Museum, Guadeloupe; the Trinidad+Tobego Film Festival, the Transforming Spaces, Bahamas; Beep Bop Boop New Media Festival, Florida, the BIAC Biennal – Martinique; Art Bémao New Media, Guadeloupe; Happy Island Project Biennal, Aruba; and at the prestigious Latitudes, Paris City Hall. 

He continues to participate in numerous new media festivals in Europe and in France. David Gumbs is a faculty member at the CCA visual arts school where he teaches Interactive Media, Motion Design, and Mix-media Design since 2009.

Selected Group Exhibitions

Live video performance