Two-month solo show The Wild Project. Nov 2015- February 2016 “Far Away” is a multi-platform ( documentary shorts, fine art, interactive installations) project on poetry and politics in Nicaragua. Participants include previous Vice President (and 2017 César Award winner) Sergio Ramirez. When approached, a large projection of a volcano begins to disintegrate. Simultaneously, illustrations of the poem The Drowned Horse appear on the opposite side of the room. “Far Away, installation” demonstrates the US’s propensity towards disruption, represented by a volcano in which is affected by our very presence. The volcano’s “lava” is the imagery of the poem spilling into the room. The poem is The Drowned Horse by Pablo Antonio Cuadra warned of the US invasion of Nicaragua. The imagery is also in physical form (drawings on paper) on the third wall of the space.
LANDLINES 10th Annual OptoSonic Tea at PIONEER WORKS April 2017 Projections: Line drawings responding to environmental audiomountain blue, 12×14 oil on wood panel 2025river to the sea, 2023 24 x 32 oil on linenghost mountain 10×12 acrylic on wood 2025
NOICE
SKY
Women waiting on line, watercolor and gouache on paper 14 x16 (part of my immigrant and refugee project), 2021
Interactive projections, paintings, and scrolling projections of a word-for-word conversation I had with Dawit Kahsay as he described his travels from Eritrea, Africa, to Texas.
Scrolling projection plays throughout the night, every night, 7 PM — 7 AM.
Physical paintings and motion-activated animations (illustrating his journey) surround the scrolling projection. EV Gallery 621 East 11th St New York, NY 10009. July 1 2021—August 30th 2021
In May I visited Casa Marianella a shelter for refugees in Austin Texas, where I interviewed several of the residents. Here is where I met Dawit Kahsay, a refugee from Eritrea, who was the inspiration for this piece.
Paintings, motion-activated interactive projections, and scrolling a projection (all night 7pm until 7am)narration Dawit Kahsay had with Dawit Kahsay as he described his travels from Eritrea Africa to Texas
2022
Stream is the fourth offering from “…and also with you”
STREAM
JULY 2022
EV Gallery 621 East 11th Street New York, NY 10009 Stream is an installation at EV Gallery, New York, by artists Miah Artola and Chris Jordan. Two wall-size projections merge, representing the inner and outer conditions of refugees’ experience of fleeing. Stream takes as its point of departure the journeys of three women from Honduras to Mexico, the first step in their quests for asylum.
Stream creates opportunities for multifaceted encounters with artworks, highlighting the fundamental necessities of survival, water and compassion. The ways in which the works confront various political, economic, and environmental issues encourage, through the experiential perception of the plight of three women, new modes of addressing this ongoing crisis. The gallery space functions as a political device, proposing a diagrammatic relationship between artist, landscape, and viewer. In this model, diverse forms of engagement can be established in relation to the use of materials, space, and the exigencies of our time.
Projection One: Miah interviewed women at a refugee shelter in Mexico City for her upcoming web-series SKY. Through a series of animated charcoal drawings, stop motion paintings, and her films of traveling through the mangroves and mountains of Mexico, she tells three of these women’s stories. Subtitles and headphones provided. There is also an ambient soundscape of Mexican forests at night.
Three chairs are offered for visitors to sit on. Each chair is named for each one of these women and offers the person sitting in the chair the opportunity to read her story, which is provided next to them.
Projection Two: Framing this is an assemblage of tubes and pumps, representing facts of immigrants lives physically through the movement of water. Chris Jordan has created a machine that creates projections and acts as an intersection of resources emblematic of the water they need. It describes the simple vital fact of the necessity for water we all are made of, and that sustains us. These projections will pause every 78 seconds to stop and consider the fact that as of July 2022, 1 in every 78 people is displaced.Stream is an exercise that detours from the politics of refugee law, suggesting the one and only guiding principle is our shared humanity.
“Border Lands” Miah Artola, oil on wood 12×16 2020
Two-month solo show The Wild Project. Nov 2015- February 2016 “Far Away” is a multi-platform ( documentary shorts, fine art, interactive installations) project on poetry and politics in Nicaragua. Participants include previous Vice President (and 2017 César Award winner) Sergio Ramirez. When approached, a large projection of a volcano begins to disintegrate. Simultaneously, illustrations of the poem The Drowned Horse appear on the opposite side of the room. “Far Away, installation” demonstrates the US’s propensity towards disruption, represented by a volcano in which is affected by our very presence. The volcano’s “lava” is the imagery of the poem spilling into the room. The poem is The Drowned Horse by Pablo Antonio Cuadra warned of the US invasion of Nicaragua. The imagery is also in physical form (drawings on paper) on the third wall of the space.
olive trees with spirits, 2026 , oil on wood with programmed lights 22 x 12
olive trees with spirits, 2026 , acrylic on wood with programmed lights 24 x 24“Just when I had given up pink smoke rose from the olive trees that the soldiers had cut down”, acrylic on wood panel, each panel is 24×20, 2026
April 2017 Projections: Line drawings responding to environmental audio
LANDLINES 10th Miah Artola PIONEER WORKS Line, Lines, drawings responding to environmental audio
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THE PROBLEM OF MEMORY
Solo show at Harvestworks. April 2015
A show on memories as objects. When participants talk into one of the provided microphones, the visuals are impacted — and this impact is recorded and looped in the next visual rotation— creating a permanent mark. Participants can listen using earphones to the various tracks created
Harvestworks solo showHarvestworks solo show 2014installation at Harvestworks
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SANCTUARY CITY
Residency at Governors Island. Autumn 2017
Five wall size paintings of refugee land with audio activated projected Arabic text on the floor and through the windows.
The Arabic is a poem on traveling across the Mediterranean sea, written by an anonymous Syrian refugee. The final show included a live performance with vocal artist Ami Yamasaki
“Sanctuary” October 2017, performance
Canada 2017: 17 X 14, Acrylic and charcoal on paperwall-sized landscape 1 Governors island Oct 2017 7ft x 3 ftAmi Yamasaki performs at the closing of the showAmi Yamasaki performs at the closing of the show
I’M NOT TELLING YOU WHAT TO DO, BUT YOU HAVE TO DO IT, part two
5-month installation at Silent Barn, August 2015-January 2016
Braille lights are projected when you walk up the stairs. The staircase is lined with canvasses of sewed braille that say” I am not telling you what to do but you have to do” which is a line I overheard in Nicaragua, a response to someone else saying “I should donate to this school”. As you walk up the stairs, you activate the entire narrative, which discusses the role of American imperialism as creator of Central American poverty.
light braille
” I am not telling you what to do but you have to do”. Hand sewn canvass of this narration.
Silent barn, three month projection installation, 2015: audio generated braille machine. Says ““I’m not telling you what to do, but you have to do it.”
Un-rehearsed improvisation with only the theme of allowing for mistakes (as in the title) As well as the non-stop mistakes of humanity excerpt
2. Cornelias Street CafeAudio Activated projection using APE to Hitomi Honda’s piano; “Sound Traffic” 2018 show at Cornelia Street Cafe_______________________________________________________________________________
JULY 2022
Silent barn, three month projection installation, 2015: audio generated braille machine. Says ““I’m not telling you what to do, but you have to do it.” 
