Florida Florarium is a monumental, site-specific textile installation commissioned for No Vacancy Miami Beach 2025, the City of Miami Beach’s juried public art competition. The work transforms the lobby and window façade of The Catalina Hotel & Beach Club into a suspended garden composed of elongated fabric banners (19’ x 22”), creating an immersive environment visible from both inside and outside the building.

The installation draws from the ancient myth of hanging gardens, reimagined not as a lost utopia but as a contemporary refuge. In response to rising sea levels and ecological vulnerability in South Florida, Florida Florarium elevates endangered and extinct native plant species, including Florida Ziziphus, Pygmy Fringe Tree, Lakela’s Mint, and Deltoid Spurge. These plants are rendered through layered fabric collage on hand-dyed raw canvas, not as scientific illustrations, but as symbolic forms that speak to survival, adaptation, and shared resilience.

Across the banners, plant species intermingle, change scale, and shift in color, forming hybrid landscapes that suggest evolution through coexistence. The composition reflects how ecosystems adapt under pressure, mirroring broader histories of displacement and transformation that shape Miami Beach itself.

Each banner is double-sided, dense, and colorful. The work does not rely on movement, transparency, or digital effects. Instead, its stillness and material weight assert presence and durability. The banners are suspended one foot above the ground, giving the impression of levitation while maintaining physical gravity and architectural clarity.

Installed across the Catalina’s two-story windows and interior lobby, Florida Florarium functions as both a visual landmark and a contemplative space. From the street, the garden appears as a vertical field of color and form. Inside, visitors encounter the work at an architectural scale, moving alongside and beneath the suspended flora. In Miami Beach, a city shaped by migration, climate vulnerability, and cultural layering, the work stands as a suspended sanctuary and a quiet call to attention, asking what we choose to elevate, preserve, and protect.