“Sand Relief”
World Ocean’s Day
Miami Beach, FL
(2025)

Lauren Shapiro collaborated with ArtSail to lead a series of community workshops engaging youth from Breakthrough Miami, Overtown Youth Center, and The Motivational Edge. These sessions invited participants to investigate the architectural landscape of Miami and its evolving relationship to the ocean.

Emerging from this research, the artist designed a series of sculptural rakes inspired by the ornamental language of Miami’s Art Deco heritage—tools conceived to inscribe ephemeral gestures into the sand.

Sand Relief activates these tools in a participatory performance along the shoreline, where community members etched fluid, temporary patterns into the earth. These transitory markings, soon dissolved by the incoming tide, gesture toward the fragile intersection of the city’s built environment and its natural surroundings.

A video documenting the work offers a meditation on memory, impermanence, and the collective imprint we leave on the planet.

As part of World Ocean Day 2025, Shapiro joined the Sheroes of the Ocean panel, hosted by the 1Hotel South Beach and moderated by ArtSail Founder and Executive Director, Ombretta Agro Andruff. Shapiro was joined by TV personality and science communicator Danni Washington; sustainable seafood expert Alejandra Sanchez; Director of the Shark Research and Conservation Program at University of Miami, Dr. Catherine MacDonald; and Dr. Shelby Thomas.

Copy of 2025_05_05 Lauren Sandart At Beach by Alex Markow-01338.jpg
Copy of 2025_05_05 Lauren Sandart At Beach by Alex Markow-0855.jpg
2025_05_05 Lauren Sandart At Beach by Alex Markow-01457.jpg
Copy of 2025_05_05 Lauren Sandart At Beach by Alex Markow-01422 (1).jpg
Copy of 2025_05_05 Lauren Sandart At Beach by Alex Markow-0785.jpg
Copy of 2025_05_05 Lauren Sandart At Beach by Alex Markow-01284.jpg
flags004.jpg
flags11.jpg
flags12.jpg