Memory Across Waters
Duet Exhibition Featuring
Karo Moret-Miranda
Larissa Linhares
Memory Across Waters
Curatorial Statement
Memory Across Waters brings together the practices of Karo Moret-Miranda and Larissa Linhares in a profound exploration of ancestry, spirituality, cultural memory, and the enduring relationship between people and the natural world. Emerging from distinct cultural and geographical contexts, both artists draw upon histories and environments that extend beyond the individual, transforming memory and inherited knowledge into visual expressions of connection, identity, and continuity.
Karo Moret-Miranda’s interdisciplinary practice is deeply rooted in African and Afro-diasporic histories, with particular attention to Yoruba cosmology and the ways ancestral knowledge survives across displacement and generations. At the center of her work is Ori, the inner head understood as a bearer of destiny, consciousness, intuition, and ancestral memory. Through her exploration of Ori and Olokun, the sovereign of the deep sea, Moret-Miranda transforms the ocean into a space where histories of rupture, loss, spiritual continuity, and rebirth converge. Her works reclaim submerged histories and reveal memory as something that cannot simply be erased or displaced.
Larissa Linhares’s practice is equally shaped by a profound relationship with place, culture, and spirituality. Raised in the Amazon and influenced by her childhood proximity to an Indigenous community, she draws from the landscapes, ancient cultures, and spiritual dimensions of her environment. Her vibrant and lyrical works create dreamlike spaces where nature, imagination, and cultural memory intersect. Through color and intuitive expression, she evokes a world in which the visible and invisible remain closely connected.
Although their artistic languages are different, both artists understand memory as something that travels through time and place. Water becomes an especially powerful point of connection: for Moret-Miranda, the ocean carries histories of displacement, ancestry, and survival; for Linhares, the natural environment becomes a source of cultural and spiritual belonging. In both practices, nature is more than a backdrop—it becomes a carrier of memory and a participant in the story.
Memory Across Waters invites viewers to consider how identity and belonging are shaped by what we inherit, what we remember, and what survives across generations. Between ancestral histories and living landscapes, these works reveal memory as a force capable of crossing boundaries, carrying stories forward, and transforming loss into continuity.
ABOUT Karo Moret-Miranda
karo moret-miranda is an Afro-Cuban historian and visual artist whose practice explores the intersections of African and Afro-Caribbean histories, spirituality, memory, race, and gender. Her research-led work moves between painting, watercolour, textiles, embroidery, trapunto, and soft sculpture. Drawing particularly from Yorùbá and Afro-Cuban cosmologies, she explores the ocean, the body, ritual, and material culture as carriers of ancestral knowledge. Her work considers how memories survive displacement and how African spiritual and cultural traditions have been transformed across the Black Atlantic. Through layered surfaces, recurring ritual symbols, and embodied forms, she approaches art-making as a way of recovering histories that have been fragmented, submerged, or excluded from dominant archives.
ARTIST STATEMENT
My practice begins with memory: what survives, what disappears, and what travels with us across generations and across waters. As an Afro-Cuban artist and historian, I work with painting, watercolour, textiles, embroidery, trapunto, and soft sculpture to explore the connections between African and Afro-Caribbean histories, spirituality, the body, and the natural world.
Water appears repeatedly in my work as both a physical and spiritual space. The Atlantic carries histories of enslavement and displacement, but it also carries memory, knowledge, ritual, and survival. Figures such as Olokun, Orí, and other elements of Yorùbá and Afro-Caribbean cosmology allow me to think about the ocean not simply as a place of loss, but as a living archive connecting Africa, the Caribbean, and their diasporas.
I am interested in what remains beneath the surface of official histories. Through layers of paint, fabric, thread, and stitched forms, I try to bring submerged memories back into view. For me, making art becomes another way to remember and ask how ancestral knowledge lives on in bodies, landscapes, objects, and materials.
Featured Works of Karo Moret-Miranda
ABOUT Larissa Linhares
Larissa Linhares is an International artist currently based in Miami, Florida.
Raised in the Amazon, she spent part of her childhood near an indigenous tribe, which profoundly influenced her artistic vision. Her work draws inspiration from the Amazonian environment, ancient cultures, Brazilian culture, Impressionism, and Expressionism.
Linhares' artworks are characterized by vibrant colors and a lyrical, intuitive style. Her creations evoke a universe of dreams, spirituality, and connection, reflecting her deep engagement with her cultural and natural surroundings.
ARTIST STATEMENT
My art is a vivid tapestry of Amazonian dreams, ancient cultures, and profound spiritual connections. Larissa Linhares draws inspiration from the richness of the Amazon, ancient cultures, and the spiritual connections that shape her artistic vision. Through vibrant colors and intuitive imagery, her work weaves together dreams, cultural memory, nature, and spirituality, creating a vivid reflection of her connection to the landscapes and traditions that have influenced her.
