August 2019 // Miami, FL // Institute of Contemporary Art

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"Nadir" is a multidisciplinary installation, sound, and poetry project developed through a six-week teaching residency at the Institute of Contemporary Art. Conceived and created by Jessica Freites, the work synthesized curriculum, storytelling exercises, and performance explorations developed with participating students into a culminating immersive installation.

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Throughout the residency, students engaged questions of identity, lineage, and futurity — asking: What lessons do we carry? What do we leave behind?

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The final installation featured a looping still video of students adorned in ancestral robes, envisioned as their future selves leaving offerings at an altar composed of objects of memory and identity. The robes, later suspended along the walls, remained as testimony — the form present even in the absence of the body. An original audio poem invited audiences to remember both the future and the past simultaneously.

Following the installation’s opening, Freites facilitated an interactive community storytelling experience during ICA’s Community Day, engaging children and families in ritual acts of remembrance and imaginative futurity.

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Role: Teaching Artist; Curriculum Design; Installation & Audio Concept; Poetic Text; Community Facilitation

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