“Moving Images”
Miami International Airport
(2022)

Working across ceramics, installation, and digital tools, Lauren Shapiro creates sculptural environments that draw from marine ecosystems, native plant life, and the built world, reimagining how contemporary architecture might exist in closer relationship with nature.

Shapiro frequently collaborates with ecologists and architects to research and develop her work, merging hand-formed clay tiles with digitally fabricated molds to create friezes, reliefs, and structures inspired by coral reefs and botany. These works function as both aesthetic objects and environmental archives, reflecting her commitment to cultivating greater awareness of ecological fragility and resilience.

This approach is foregrounded in two short films which screened at the Miami International Airport Moving Images (MIAmi) Gallery at Gate J7. Produced by Lightpalace, the films document the development of Future Pacific (2020) and Garden Portals (2021), two collaborative, participatory projects that invited public engagement as a central component of their making.

For both projects, Shapiro hosted open community sessions in which participants affixed clay replicas of plants and corals onto large-scale sculptural structures and ceramic murals. Through this hands-on process, participants were invited to reflect on their own relationship to vulnerable ecosystems and consider collective responsibility in the face of environmental change. Rather than presenting climate issues didactically, Shapiro uses making as a tool for dialogue and shared stewardship.

Filming for Future Pacific was supported by a National Science Foundation grant and centers marine conservation and research, while Garden Portals reflects South Florida’s native ecology and was supported by a Knight Arts Challenge Award and local cultural partners. Together, the projects, and the films documenting them, highlight Shapiro’s practice as one rooted in collaboration, research, and community-driven environmental engagement.