Design
Artist Derrick Adams Shows I-95’s Impact on Black Miami
With “America’s Playground,” artist Derrick Adams evokes the damage caused by Interstate 95 as planners routed it through Miami’s Overtown neighborhood.
Last week, outside of Miami Beach’s Faena Hotel, two mirror-image playgrounds—one stark and monochromatic, the other awash in color—stood back-to-back on the sand. Between them, a photographic backdrop showed African-American children at play on a jungle gym under a highway overpass.
It was Miami Art Week, and art-fair attendees and passersby were invited to climb and swing on “America’s Playground.” The installation by conceptual artist Derrick Adams paid homage to the history of Miami’s Overtown neighborhood, nearly destroyed by highway construction in the 1960s.