The goal of “Quito Design Week” was to position Ecuadorian Design in a global context where it has been “marginal” at best. Through an exhibition and a week-long series of workshops and lectures, our team aimed to create a space to elevate Ecuadorian art + design. We hoped to inspire creatives to use their brilliant designa as agents of change.

“Within us all is grief for what is happening to our world…That’s because I belong. That’s because I am part of the sacred living body of Earth.” •⁠ ⁠Johana Macy

Justyna Kisielewicz confronts the legacies of colonialism and our shared pursuit of freedom in Living Space, her most ambitious exhibition to date. According to the artist, the work “explores Polish history within the context of multiple sites of global oppression, including the colonial project in the Americas and our current climate crisis.” Her kaleidoscopic, atemporal oil paintings weave together disparate historical periods, lush Florida vegetation, a pantheon of symboli

Art writer, curator, and cultural strategist Veronica Pesantes-Vallejo has built a career between storytelling, research, and community engagement. Through her writing and curatorial projects, she explores how art reflects identity, migration, and the social histories that shape culture today.

The Art Newspaper, Art Basel Miami Beach 2025 Edition

The first major retrospective devoted to the Karachi-born, Brooklyn-based artist Hiba Schahbaz, The Garden, features works spanning 15 years of the artist’s practice—including loans from private collections, work from her studio and newly commissioned pieces. It was curated by Jasmine Wahi and is anchored by the idea of the jannat, the Paradise Garden, a motif rooted in Islamic tradition and Sufi poetry.

Veronica Pesantes (B.A. ’94) is this week’s featured alum in our new Alumni Spotlight series for the This Week at Meadows e-newsletter. Each week, a different Meadows alum will be highlighted for their accomplishments post-graduation.

The Art Newspaper, June 2025

MIA Art Hang is a curated exhibition tour program run entirely by Veronica Pesantes, a local curator, arts writer, teacher, and cultural organizer. Pesantes hopes to bring criticality to the forefront of her MIA Art Hangs, allowing viewers to get the “insider’s scoop” on the exhibitions she takes them to, and to appreciate what they’re seeing through cultural and theoretical context.

The Art Newspaper, October 2025

The Onikas es el sueño de Verónica Pesantes, una quiteña que ha construido su vida personal y profesional en Miami, y que lleva a Ecuador adherido a su corazón. Espera culminar este año con ingresos superiores a USD 160.000 y sus diseños textiles son el reflejo de su pasión por el arte, la historia y el cuidado al planeta.

“In Plain Sight” at Tunnel Projects in Little Havana, is a photography exhibition by Miami artist and creative director, Esdras T. Thelusma (b.1989, Freeport, Bahamas), curated by painter Reginald O'Neal, currently on view until Jan 5th. Thelusma is known for his edgy portraits of hip-hop artists, but this show includes pictures of neighbors and friends as well. As the title hints, this exhibit reveals contrasts between humble surroundings and symbols of aspiration that serve

Veronica Pesantes shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below. Hi Veronica, thank you for taking the time to reflect back on your journey with us. I think our readers are in for a real treat. There is so much we can all learn from each other and so thank you again for opening up with us. Let’s get into it: Who are you learning from right now?

Born in Soviet-occupied Warsaw, Miami-based artist Justyna Kisielewicz’s paintings brim with multi-layered, socio-political references, humor, and kaleidoscopic colors. Her work will be shown for the first time at the Untitled fair during Art Basel Miami Beach after a busy year that includes five group exhibits in Paris, Warsaw, Miami and Bogota plus two solo shows. As an Eastern European living in sunny Miami, she personifies Untitled's 2024 curatorial focus of East meets We

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Veronica Pesantes a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below. Hi Veronica , thanks for joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

The Art Newspaper, Art Basel edition, 2024

Textiles have been used as a means of communication for centuries; the word “text” comes from the Latin textus, meaning “woven.” Covering us from birth to death, textiles have conveyed symbolic, political, and spiritual messages across cultures from the Incan empire to Gee Bends quilters. As evident in the multi dimensional work of Miami’s Fiber-based women artists, textiles intrinsically convey both ideas of care and nurturing, as well as resistance and critical inquiry.

Instead of the Easter Bunny and its pastel-colored eggs, on this Spring Equinox I feel like this Mesopotamian goddess of love, fertility, and war is more in tune with our current global state of affairs. She is a deity of paradoxes, linked to the planet Venus and known as the “Queen of Heaven or Queen of Death,” embodying both creativity and love as well as destruction, conflict and power.

Recent Fashion Photography and Non-Performative Diversity Veronica Pesantes As a teenager growing up in Dallas, Texas in the pre-internet era I spent countless hours combing through fashion magazines, yet nobody ever looked like me. I emigrated to the US from Ecuador with my mother at the age of five. When she told me we were headed to the United States I asked her if that meant I would have blond hair and blue eyes when we moved? Somehow in Ecuador, by age four, I had alread

“The current art world suffers from an unsustainable hunger for more: more art fairs, more noise, more buzz and an ever-growing obsession with market price. Despite some record-breaking sales, the art market has been in decline for fifteen years. Artists, argues former Art Basel global director Marc Spiegl, create transformative objects and experiences, and encountering them should feel like a better use of money than anything else.