Event Details | Lusmerlin Exhibition: Big Bang Baby

Exhibit Information

Big Bang Baby is an immersive celebration of joyful universes—where ancestral stories, scientific wonder, and spiritual imagination converge. Rooted in African and Caribbean Native cosmologies, the work reimagines creation through the figure of a female Zemi—a being of birth, transformation, and radiant energy. In Taíno culture, Zemis are both deities or ancestral spirits and the sculptural vessels that house them. They reveal themselves through vision and ritual, asking to be made from materials like bone, clay, wood, or stone.

Here, Big Bang Baby becomes a Zemi of joy, awe, and abundance—a cosmic spirit birthing new worlds through light and color. The installation pairs ancestral narratives with the physics of energy and matter, exploring how portals, dimensions, and the unseen forces of the universe mirror our inner states of being.

Visually, the work merges painting, sculpture, and light to form an environment that feels both earthly and celestial. Pastel, acrylic, LED lighting, wax paper, canvas, and sound come together in a constellation of translucent “clouds” that hover and glow—inviting visitors to move within the atmosphere of creation itself.

As an Afro-Latin immigrant artist, I see joy as an act of resistance—an energy field that expands beyond trauma to affirm collective imagination. Big Bang Baby offers a sanctuary for reflection and breathing, a space where myth meets science and where the universal becomes personal. It is an altar to possibility, honoring the power of ancestral memory and the boundless potential of light.

Reception Information

Thursday, February 5, 2026 5:30 p.m.

Horowitz Center programming is made possible through generous support from the Maryland State Arts Council.