Monica Uszerowicz

Freelance Writer at Freelance

Writer & photographer; Capricorn rising; Miami

Articles

Lineage and Light: Rose Marie Cromwell’s “A Geological Survey”

1 month ago | momus.ca | Monica Uszerowicz

In what ways is a mother like a tree? A mother—a caregiver, really, because lineages are built not merely by blood and biology but with tenderness and with time—nourishes and guards and shades the ones they love. Whether or not the “mother tree” theory is factual, the phenomenon of family is not specific to humans. A tree’s roots extend toward its kin, cultivating a clan of earth-tenders.
Monica Uszerowicz

1 month ago | momus.ca | Monica Uszerowicz

In what ways is a mother like a tree? A mother—a caregiver, really, because lineages are built not merely by blood and biology but…
Ana María Caballero and Denise Duhamel

2 months ago | bombmagazine.org | Monica Uszerowicz |Chantal Akerman

Ana María Caballero and Denise Duhamel met when Caballero became Duhamel's graduate poetry student at Florida International University (FIU). A friendship quickly developed, and they worked together on theVERSEverse, a digital poetry gallery Caballero co-founded. Most recently, the two writers met via video conference to discuss motherhood, poetry, and how they handle that mother lode, a rich source of material, in their latest books.
Miami Advice: Dehja Carrington on April Bey’s inspiring ‘aesthetics of cultural reclamation’

Dec 6, 2024 | theartnewspaper.com | Monica Uszerowicz

On Atlantica, a fictional home planet conceived by the artist April Bey, Colonial Swag is, as Bey has described it, “a high-fashion luxury brand… that uses fully sustainable, ethically mined colonialism from Earth’s developing countries to create beautiful, priceless pieces of fashion”. Her painting Colonial Day Sale: What Are You Gonna Do, If You Like a Woman and Your Mama No Like Am? (2021) is located in the Miami Design District, where it is surrounded by the Earth’s luxury brands.
Miami Advice: Reginald O’Neal on the Purvis Young mural that has always stayed with him

Dec 5, 2024 | theartnewspaper.com | Monica Uszerowicz

The late Purvis Young, a native of Miami’s Overtown neighbourhood and arguably the city’s most beloved artist, developed a visual lexicon comprised of his own unique iconography. Horses—appearing in his paintings as dreamlike, occasionally transparent, figures in clusters—represented freedom, while eyes sometimes signified authoritarianism and an ever-present surveillance system.
Miami Advice: Marie Vickles on the independent photography organisation that offers an invaluable open platform

Dec 4, 2024 | theartnewspaper.com | Monica Uszerowicz

Located in Little Haiti, IPC ArtSpace’s name only narrowly defines the purpose of this unique hub. Led by the photojournalist Carl-Philippe Juste, the director of the Haitian Cultural Arts Alliance (which is housed in the same building), and named for the Iris Photo Collective—an independent group of artists and documentary photographers—IPC ArtSpace is not simply a gallery. It is also a community meeting point, a home for gatherings, projects and experiments.
Miami Advice: Natalia Zuluaga on a little-known work that pays tribute to the city’s Black history

Dec 3, 2024 | theartnewspaper.com | Monica Uszerowicz

Exit the Earlington Heights Metrorail station in Miami’s Brownsville neighbourhood and head to the lawn right at its entrance. There, you’ll find a cluster of sky-blue concrete stones, cradled by ferns, live oaks and other subtropical flora. Their colour was once weathered, the surrounding vegetation having left its muddy mark—but even before they were given a fresh coat of paint, the stones would briefly shine, almost incandescent, in the golden-hour light of sunset.
Lee Pivnik’s Chimeras at Dale Zine, Miami

Nov 22, 2024 | burnaway.org | Monica Uszerowicz

In Hayao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke (1997), the titular princess, a girl named San raised by a wolf-goddess, wears the furs of her lupine clan, her scent camouflaged away—and, with it, part of her humanness. She is both maiden and wolf. In Lee Pivnik’s Chimeras—an exhibition inspired by the artist’s speculative, sci-fi story, set in 2086—animal guises shield the eponymous chimeras, safeguarding them from prying eyes and functioning as markers of solidarity. Who are the chimeras?
Buenezas of South Florida

Aug 12, 2024 | jewishcurrents.org | Monica Uszerowicz

Ten years ago, my friend Harmony made me eat aloe vera. The plant was growing tall and spiky in the front yard of our shared home in Miami, and Harmony cut the top of one of the thick serrated leaves and squeezed out a cube of glistening gel, like a freezer pop. I’d been suffering from stomach ailments for over a month; the aloe relieved my pain almost immediately. Seven years later, Harmony, who was about to move to New York, left the plant in my new backyard.
Elias Rischmawi Preserves Memory Against Erasure

May 20, 2024 | hyperallergic.com | Monica Uszerowicz

MIAMI — In The Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard’s 1958 treatise on architecture and memory, the philosopher wrote, “Memories of the outside world will never have the same tonality as those of home and, by recalling these memories, we add to our store of dreams; we are never real historians, but always near poets.” What happens when home traverses miles — when it’s caught in the sway between one’s homeland and the land one makes a home of?