Museum of Art and Design at MDC

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Museum of Art and Design at MDC

Visit our exhibition space at the & join us for offsite exhibitions & programs. [email protected]

The Museum of Art and Design (MOAD) at Miami Dade College offers groundbreaking exhibitions and programs that explore the challenges and opportunities we face locally. MOAD convenes artists, designers, and thinkers to address the urgent questions of our time. As the flagship museum of Miami Dade College, MOAD strives to be a catalyst for action and a place that empowers people to redefine their city. Miami Dade College is an equal access/equal opportunity institution which does not discriminate on the basis of sex, race, color, marital status, age, religion, national origin, disability, veteran’s status, ethnicity, pregnancy, sexual orientation or genetic information. To obtain more information about the College’s equal access and equal opportunity policies, procedures and practices, please contact the College’s Civil Rights Compliance Officer: Cindy Lau Evans, Director, Equal Opportunity Programs/ ADA Coordinator/ Title IX Coordinator, at (305) 237-2577 (Voice) or 711 (Relay Service). 11011 SW 104 St., Room 1102-01; Miami, FL 33176.

10/05/2026

✨ Join us Saturday, October 10, from 6:00–9:00 PM at the Freedom Tower for an evening of embodied exploration celebrating Miami’s ever-evolving landscape—where art, movement, and wellness converge.

Artist and choreographer Smita Sen leads a guided tour of Abstraction as Legacy, drawing connections between the works on view and the language of her own practice.

🎶 Immersive sound collective Ressonnance then dissolves the boundary between music and transcendence, composing a live response to the space.

Together, Sen and Ressonnance guide participants through a performance inviting the body to lead, to listen, and to find new meaning through sound and motion.

📅 Saturday, October 10
⏰ 6:00–9:00 PM
📍 Freedom Tower

🔗 Event is free. To register please visit the link in our bio

Image 1 courtesy of the artists
Image 2 by Pedro Wazzan

10/01/2026

Join our special artist guests Maitejosune Urrechaga and Giorge Michel Milián Maura in the Knight Skylight Gallery for FREE art-making activities inspired by festivals from Spain and Latin America.

📅 Sunday, October 4, 2026
⏰ 11:00 AM – 4:00PM
📍 Freedom Tower

Create masks, hats, and wearable art, then join a special procession through the museum! 🎭👒🎉

✨ FREE and open to the public
No registration required.

📷 Image by Rudolph Pierre

MOADMakes

09/30/2026

Museum of Art and Design presenta “Noche de poesía con Legna Rodríguez Iglesias”

📅 Miércoles, 7 de octubre
⏰ 6–8 p. m.
🎟️ Gratis y abierto a todo el público

Inspirada en Abstraction as Legacy, la reconocida poeta y escritora cubana Legna Rodríguez Iglesias dirigirá un taller de escritura creativa que explorará las conexiones entre el arte visual, el lenguaje, la memoria y la imaginación. A través de ejercicios guiados y la observación detallada de las obras, los participantes transformarán sus respuestas a la exposición en poesía.

Rodríguez Iglesias ha sido galardonada con el Premio Casa de las Américas, el Paz Prize for Poetry y el Premio Franz Kafka de Ensayo/Testimonio. Su obra abarca la poesía, la ficción, el teatro, el ensayo y la crónica, y sus textos sobre arte y literatura aparecen regularmente en Rialta.

✨ Este taller será dictado en español.

📷 Imagen cortesía de la artista.
—

Museum of Art and Design presents “Poetry Night with Legna Rodríguez Iglesias”

📅 Wednesday, October 7
⏰ 6–8 p.m.
🎟️ Free and open to the public

Inspired by Abstraction as Legacy, acclaimed Cuban poet and writer Legna Rodríguez Iglesias will lead a creative writing workshop exploring the connections between visual art, language, memory, and imagination. Through guided prompts and close looking, participants will transform their responses to the exhibition into poetry.

Rodríguez Iglesias is the recipient of the Casa de las Américas Prize, Paz Prize for Poetry, and Franz Kafka Prize for Essay/Testimony. Her work spans poetry, fiction, theater, essays, and chronicles, and her writing on art and literature regularly appears in Rialta.

✨ This workshop will be conducted in Spanish.

📷 Image courtesy of the artist.

09/27/2026

📅 On Tuesday, September 29, we welcome Sharon Louden back to the Freedom Tower! ✨ This daytime talk is free and open to the public.

Learn from Louden about her sculptural installation, “Windows of Freedom Tower,” as well as new developments in her practice.

Sharon Louden will be in conversation with NWSA student Emmanuel Ramírez in the Knight Skylight Gallery. Sharon Louden

📅 Tuesday, September 29
🕑 2–3:30 PM
📍 Knight Skylight Gallery, Freedom Tower
🎟️ Free and open to the public

Photos by Oriol Tarridas

09/25/2026

Don’t miss Freedom Family Day this Sunday! 🎨🎶

Join us for a FREE afternoon of art, music, movement, and family fun at the Freedom Tower!

Create with special guest artist Nicole Combeau and experience the rhythms of the Colombian Caribbean with Pazyflora. 🥁

📅 Sunday, September 27
⏰ 11 AM–2 PM Activities
🎟️ FREE ADMISSION
🚗 Free parking at MDC’s Parking Lot 1, on the south side of the Freedom Tower between NE 5th & NE 6th Streets.

09/22/2026

Journalism. History. Sports. All three collide at the Freedom Tower, a National Historic Landmark.

The Freedom Tower was originally built to be the home of the Miami Daily News. It’s legacy as a space for journalism continues in the Knight Skylight Gallery through free programming.
On September 23rd at 630pm, join us for a conversation with legendary journalist Michelle Kaufman.

Michelle Kaufman has been a sportswriter for 40 years. She was born in Frederick, Md., raised in Miami and graduated from the University of Miami in 1987.

She has covered 14 Olympics, seven World Cups, numerous Wimbledons, French Opens, US Opens, NCAA Final Fours, Super Bowls, World Series, and NBA Finals. Her assignments have taken her to South Africa, Australia, Japan, South Korea, China, Russia, Cuba, Argentina, Brazil, Norway, Greece, Italy, France, England, Germany, Canada, and Spain.

Her career began in 1987 at the St. Petersburg Times, where she covered the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and was one of the only women covering the NFL at that time.

From there she went to the Detroit Free Press, where she spent seven years before returning home to the Miami Herald in 1996.

Kaufman’s work was published in A Kind of Grace, A Treasury of Sportswriting by Women; Real Sports Reporting — a sports journalism textbook; and Nike is a Goddess: History of Women’s Sports.

Free parking is available in Lot 1, located directly south of the Freedom Tower.
Attendees will have the opportunity to see “Unidad: The World’s Game” before the lecture.

Learn from Michelle and enjoy a riveting conversation about her career journey and the state of sports journalism, including her sit down interview with Leo Messi, and the state of sports journalism.

📷 Images by Matias J. Ocner, Miami Herald

09/21/2026

FREE ADMISSION for Freedom Family Day is THIS SUNDAY!! Experience the Freedom Tower with the whole family. ✨

🎨 Create alongside special guest artist Nicole Combeau with an art-making activity inspired by Abstraction as Legacy.

🥁 Move, listen, and experience rhythms with Pazyflora, rooted in the musical traditions of the Colombian Caribbean.

Explore the Freedom Tower, visit the exhibitions, make art, and enjoy a day designed for families to experience the museum together.

📅 Sunday, September 27
⏰ 11 AM–2 PM
📍 Freedom Tower
🎟️ FREE ADMISSION
🚗 FREE parking at MDC’s Parking Lot 1, on the south side of the Freedom Tower between NE 5th and NE 6th Streets.

See you at the Freedom Tower!

Images by Rudolph Pierre

09/19/2026

Missing the magic of the World Cup?

Come by the Freedom Tower this Wednesday night for a conversation with legendary sports journalist Michelle Kaufman, who has covered 7 World Cups and so much more. 🎙️✨

Attendees will also have an opportunity to view Unidad: The World’s Game before the conversation.

🗓️ Wednesday, September 23, 2026
🕡 Conversation begins at 6:30 PM

🎟️ FREE and open to the public

🚗 Free parking at MDC’s Parking Lot 1, located on the south side of the Freedom Tower, between NE 5th and NE 6th Streets.

09/15/2026

Start your Saturday with movement and mindfulness! 🧘‍♀️✨

MOAD Moves with Romi
📅 This Saturday
⏰ 9–10 AM
📍 Freedom Tower

Free and open to the public. Register through the link in bio!

🚗 Free parking at MDC’s Parking building 7, between NE 5th and NE 6th Streets.

09/11/2026

Vaughn Spann’s Mercy after Rage, 2025, polymer paint and mixed media on wood, offers a powerful punctuation point in our current group exhibition, Abstraction as Legacy.

In Mercy after Rage, the artist builds a dense, tactile surface, creating a topography that feels at once wounded and regenerative. The work’s physicality—its ridges, ruptures, and accumulations—suggests the residue of intense emotional states, where anger has not disappeared but has been transformed. Mercy does not erase rage but follows it, shaped by its presence.

Color plays a central role in Spann’s work, where vivid hues and striking contrasts command attention and intensify the painting’s emotional resonance. An unexpected moment with Spann’s painting occurs in Abstraction as Legacy, as from one vantage point it can be seen in conversation with a compelling canvas by Young-Il Ahn.

Young-Il Ahn’s deep connection to nature and his meditation on water through an abstract language resonate deeply within the history of American abstraction. He once stated, “I was moved by the ocean’s ability to radiate such profound beauty.”

In California, Young-Il Ahn developed an affinity for sailing a fishing boat and spent considerable time out on the open waters. One day in July 1983, his boat became engulfed in fog, causing disorientation. This destabilizing experience, as well as the way the light hit the water when the clouds finally parted, led the artist on a deep, rigorous artistic journey. His abstractions were a response to the experience of water and a rumination on the sublime. In regard to his Water series, the artist once stated, “My body and mind felt a wonderful release from the cares of the world.”

🗓️ See these two paintings before Abstraction as Legacy closes on October 18.

🖼️ Vaughn Spann, b. 1992, Orlando, Florida
Mercy after Rage
Polymer paint and mixed media on wood, 2025
Courtesy of the artist and David Castillo

🖼️ Young-Il Ahn (b. 1934, Gaeseong, Korea–d. 2020, Los Angeles, California)
Water YLGW 18A
Oil on canvas, 2018
Made possible by Kenneth C. Griffin Collection

📸 Photos by Oriol Tarridas

Address

600 Biscayne Boulevard
Miami, FL
33132

Telephone

+13052377700

Website

https://moadmdc.org/

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