HistoryMiami’s “Our Sacred Places” Delivers the Good Vibes

Our beloved HistoryMiami museum’s new exhibit SANCTUARY: Our Sacred Places opened August 22nd with a jam packed reception filled with some of our city’s most beloved artists, philanthropists, and cultural enthusiasts. The night was classy and immersive, featuring a Mexican indigenous dance ceremony by Ameyal Institute, and a resounding gospel choir led by Hued Songs.  

If you missed Opening Night, all’s good-in-the-hood.

This is all about the exhibit, a massive display of photography by Little Haiti photographer, Woosler Delisfort.

According to HistoryMiami, the exhibit “delves into the spiritual origins of Miami’s Indigenous, African and Caribbean communities by capturing moments of divine connection in temples, churches, and mosques. The more than 100-piece exhibition highlights how these cultures are harnessing sacred spaces in Miami as vital sources of life, both politically and spiritually.”

You have to see this exhibit. It’s encompassing, engrossing and very special to our hometown city. The exhibit is fire, rain, earth, wind, up, down, left, and right on!! It’s a homage to our cultural heritage’s safe spaces and sacred places. Places where we worship our elders. Where we worship and give respect, ceremony and sacrifice to a higher power.

You will be transported to a Haitian Vodou baptism ceremony on Dania Beach. You will see offerings at a Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, altar in Little Havana. And a Muslim man praying inside Miami’s oldest mosque.  You will encounter alters, with pictures of ancestors, passed on elders, and all sorts of ways to commune with them.

The exhibit, on the 2nd floor on the museum, is on display until January 26th, 2025 — so you have plenty of time. Check it out and bring a friend or child. Share the news with your students, colleagues, congregations and clubs. This one is dope.

For more info, click here.

And check out opening night and a preview below.

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J.J. Colagrande

Has written about Miami culture for twenty years, first with The Miami Herald, then Miami New Times and Huffington Post. He's the publisher of The Jitney and a full-time professor at Miami Dade College.