Today, we take you to the wild side of Vizcaya Museum and Gardens in Miami, Florida. Curator Gina Wouters, and artists Mira Lehr and Yara Travieso talk about What This Place Does Not Remember, one of eleven projects in the contemporary art exhibition Lost Spaces and Stories that celebrate Vizcaya’s centennial.

The inspiration for Mira Lehr’s and Yara Travieso’s dramatic Baroque performance installation is a forgotten garden at the edge of the museum’s south property and Henry Purcell‘s Dido and Aeneas, an English opera he composed more than 300 years ago. The opera tells the mythological story of Dido, Queen of Carthage, and her love for the Trojan hero Aeneas. In What This Place Does Not Remember, the two contemporary artists personify Vizcaya as the legendary Queen Dido. Lehr’s environmental installation sets the stage for Dido’s Lament, the performance that Travieso directs. An opera singer, a dancer, and a cellist enact the queen’s tragic love story within a lyric web of black rope that evokes the surrounding mangroves.

Sound Editor: Guney Ozsan
Project commissioned by Vizcaya Museum and Gardens
Performance: Yara Travieso (Director and Choreographer) and Mira Lehr (Artist and Set Designer) with Jacqueline Bulnes (Dancer), Amanda Crider (Mezzo Soprano), Stephanie Jaimes (Cellist), David Redmond (Fabricator and Engineer), Ingrid Travieso (Costume Designer)