An Evening With Diego Alejandro Waisman

***Please note: This event will take place at the Books & Books in Coral Gables at 265 Aragon Ave. Tickets are FREE and books will be available for purchase at the event. Want your copy early or can't make it in-person?

In a collection of images that are both quiet and telling, Sunset Colonies portrays the vulnerabilities experienced by residents of South Florida’s mobile home communities amid rapid urban transformation and the threat of economic displacement. Photographer Diego Waisman captures a fractured sense of place in Miami-area neighborhoods that once flourished but are now increasingly forgotten.
Essays by scholars Amy Galpin, Louis Herns Marcelin, and Alpesh Kantilal Patel give context to the current situation of these trailer parks, which at first promised their occupants stability, affordable housing, and for many, a comfortable retirement. But development initiatives, surging rent prices, and environmental hazards have disrupted this dream. Waisman’s images, collected over seven years, ruminate on worn corrugated exteriors, cracked ceramic tile, and the looming construction of luxury apartment buildings nearby.
An homage to a way of life that is quickly slipping away, Sunset Colonies raises urgent questions about the invisibility of mobile communities, their histories, and their potential futures. Waisman also emphasizes the strength and resilience of people whose definition of home lies in the balance between memory and encroaching reality. Together, the images and essays in this book create a multilayered meditation on place, community, and dignity.

Diego Alejandro Waisman is a Buenos Aires-born, Miami-based visual artist whose work explores social and economic displacement, exile, family, identity, and origins. Reflecting on his family's diaspora and his own immigrant journey, he has received the 2022 Green Space grant and an award from the 30th Emerald Coast National, along with the Berkowitz Arts Foundation Scholarship, the Florida International University Visual Arts Scholarship, and the Faena Curatorial Scholarship. His art has been exhibited in South Florida and internationally. Waisman holds degrees in Computer Animation and Multimedia from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, Studio Art from the University of Miami, and an MFA from Florida International University.

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