Marta Minujín Transforms the Miami Design District with Dreamscape

The Miami Design District has long been a haven for artistic innovation, but for two weeks this March, it will become something else entirely—a surreal, interactive dreamworld courtesy of Argentine art icon Marta Minujín.

Presented in partnership with The Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami (ICA Miami), Marta Minujín: Dreamscape is the artist’s first large-scale public project in the city. Featuring two monumental inflatable sculptures—Sculpture of Desires and Emotional Candy—the exhibition will transform Jungle Plaza into a multisensory wonderland from March 18 to 31, 2025.

Minujín has been pushing the boundaries of experiential art for more than six decades, and Dreamscape is no exception. Towering 30 feet above Jungle Plaza, Sculpture of Desires is a luminous portal of intertwined arms, inviting visitors to step inside and whisper their wishes into its softly inflated walls.

Nearby, Emotional Candy is a labyrinthine maze designed to delight and disorient. Its winding hallways—covered in Minujín’s signature fluorescent hues and undulating patterns—blur the line between physical space and sensory experience. A subtle soundtrack of ambient birdsong encourages visitors to slow down, get lost, and fully immerse themselves in the moment.

Both sculptures nod to Minujín’s pioneering mattress sculptures of the 1960s, which invited audiences to physically engage with art in ways that were, at the time, radical. Today, her work remains just as bold, playful, and participatory.

For the uninitiated, Marta Minujín is not your typical contemporary artist. Born in Buenos Aires in 1943, she was a key figure in the 1960s and ’70s avant-garde, known for blending performance, media, and large-scale happenings into something wholly new.

Her early works were literally explosive—in 1963, she famously set her own sculptures on fire in The Destruction, a spectacle of renewal and transformation. By the mid-1960s, she was experimenting with interactive, immersive environments, including The Long Shot (1964) and Mayhem (1965). Later, she became a pioneer of mass media art, launching projects like Simultaneity in Simultaneity (1966), which connected audiences in different cities through live satellite broadcasts.

Her most famous work, The Parthenon of Books (1983), was a monumental structure built entirely out of censored books, a powerful celebration of Argentina’s return to democracy.

To mark the opening of Dreamscape, the Miami Design District will host an exclusive celebration on March 18 at 6 PM, where Minujín herself will be present. Expect an evening that blends art, conversation, and the avant-garde energy that has defined her career.

At a time when the art world is increasingly digital, Minujín’s work serves as a reminder of the power of physical, shared experiences. Her immersive environments don’t just ask to be viewed—they demand to be touched, entered, and inhabited.

By bringing her work to Miami’s Design District, ICA Miami and its partners—Meet People Meet Places, Fundación Ama Amoedo, Craig Robins, and Clarice O. Tavares—are reinforcing the city’s reputation as a global epicenter for contemporary art.

For two weeks, Miami won’t just be hosting an exhibition. It will be living inside a dream of Marta Minujín’s making.