Edison Peñafiel builds immersive environments where history, myth, and power collide. Working across video, sculpture, sound, and architectural form, his practice transforms political memory and lived experience into spatial narratives that viewers must physically enter and navigate.

After relocating to the United States in 2002, Peñafiel developed a practice shaped by questions of displacement, surveillance, and collective belief. Influenced by German Expressionism and the mechanics of spectacle, his installations draw on cycles of repetition—ritual, labor, exile, devotion—to examine how systems of power shape both personal and communal identity. Scale, atmosphere, and sensory immersion are central to his work, blurring the boundary between illusion and reality and positioning the viewer inside structures of tension and control.

His work has been presented at institutions including the University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, The Bass Museum, The Ringling Museum, and CA2M – Centro de Arte Contemporáneo 2 de Mayo in Madrid. International presentations include BIENALSUR in Argentina and Madrid and Trienal Poli/Gráfica in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He is represented by Sabrina Amrani Gallery in Madrid.

Peñafiel’s practice has been supported by the VIA Art Fund, the Knight Foundation, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and the State of Florida Division of Arts and Culture. He is the recipient of the Florida Prize in Contemporary Art, the Premio ARCO Comunidad de Madrid, and the Ellies Creator Award. His work is held in public collections including CA2M, Elsewhere Museum, and Oolite Arts.

He has participated in residencies at MASS MoCA, Anderson Ranch, McColl Center, Oolite Arts, and the Watermill Center. He is currently developing De Profundis Clamavi ad Astra, a large-scale, multi-sensory installation premiering at Locust Projects during Miami Art Week 2026 and supported by the VIA Art Fund.

Through immersive form, Peñafiel’s work invites audiences to confront history not as something observed from a distance, but as a force that is entered, inhabited, and transformed.

STATEMENT

Edison Peñafiel’s practice centers on the construction of immersive environments that examine how power, belief, and history are experienced at a bodily scale. Working with video, sound, sculpture, and architectural elements, he creates spatial narratives that viewers must enter and navigate, positioning perception itself as part of the work.

Rooted in personal and collective experiences of migration, his installations explore systems of control—ritual, labor, surveillance—and the ways they shape identity and memory over time. Influenced by German Expressionism and political spectacle, Peñafiel employs distortion, repetition, and atmosphere to destabilize orientation and challenge passive viewing.

His work often incorporates projections, found materials, and sound to evoke structures of authority and observation. These elements do not function as symbols alone, but as conditions that shape the viewer’s movement, attention, and sense of agency within the space. Meaning emerges through navigation, duration, and proximity.

Across projects such as MARE MAGNVM: A Floridian Odyssey and Ni Aquí, Ni Allá, Peñafiel constructs environments where the boundary between reality and illusion remains deliberately unstable. Rather than offering resolution, the work sustains tension—inviting viewers to confront how systems of power are internalized, inhabited, and reproduced.