Evelyn Sosa is a young Cuban photographer who has already left a subtle yet unmistakable imprint on the artistic ecosystem of the American Midwest. In 2024, she took part in Through a Stranger’s Eyes, an exhibition presented under the FotoFocus program. Coming from the Caribbean—and, more precisely, from Miami—she introduced a transnational conversation rarely encountered in these latitudes. In a nation that sustains its foundational myth on the idea of migrants arriving in a “new world,” there is still ample room for perspectives like hers—where displacement and memory are articulated through histories far more intricate than those enshrined in that national narrative.

Alongside Yudith Vargas, the first Cuban coordinator of Bridge Not Walls—a project conceived by visual artist Kay Hurley and photographer and cultural advocate Jens G. Rosenkrantz Jr.—Sosa contributed her photographic sensibility and inscribed her work within a territory that, though increasingly visible, has seldom been associated with contemporary Cuban production. Bridge Not Walls has followed Evelyn Sosa’s trajectory for many years, and a solo exhibition project, together with a forthcoming book gathering her most recent work, is already in development.

And today, Evelyn has been selected as one of the twelve artists participating in No Vacancy Miami Beach 2025, the juried contemporary art program promoted by the City of Miami Beach within the broader context of Art Week.

Her inclusion in this competition constitutes a significant institutional endorsement. It signals that the city, its cultural authorities, and the Miami Beach Visitor and Convention Authority publicly acknowledge a body of work already consolidated in South Florida. What matters here, in my view, is that this program remains one of the few platforms where—within an ecosystem saturated with commercial fairs—curatorial judgment prevails over the market.

Launched in 2020 as a public initiative to support local artists in a moment of global instability, No Vacancy quickly evolved into a competitive award that merges hospitality, artistic production, and a decisive presence within Miami Art Week. Being selected entails receiving a production stipend, joining an art circuit hosted by iconic hotels, and being evaluated by a jury of curators and institutional professionals from PAMM, ICA Miami, and MOAD. These are the reasons why so many emerging and mid-career artists regard this recognition as a turning point.

Within this context, Sosa’s project—No Place Is Far Away, presented at the Nautilus Sonesta Miami Beach—acquires a strategic resonance. Her work, rooted in intimacy, identity, and the memory of the Cuban diaspora, finds in this program a platform where it will be scrutinized by the curatorial community that descends on Miami each year in search of new voices. To be selected is, in itself, a certificate of relevance that moves her into a more universal and demanding conversation about displacement—particularly as a migratory experience—and its visual representation.

Barring some extraordinary upheaval, this opportunity will grant Evelyn Sosa the media visibility her work has deserved for years. It shortens the path toward substantive curatorial projects, more consistent acquisitions from private and institutional collectors, and strong candidacies for grants such as the South Florida Cultural Consortium or residencies at Oolite Arts and the Bakehouse—should she be inclined to pursue them.

No Vacancy has, in the past, accelerated the careers of several artists toward museum settings and international fairs. The fact that the works are exhibited in emblematic hotels, temporarily converted into experimental capsules, expands the circulation of images in a Miami Beach that becomes something else entirely when art takes it hostage

Am I surprised by this award?

Not in the least. Evelyn Sosa’s work tastes intensely of Evelyn Sosa. It calls out from afar, recognizable even when glimpsed through partially opaque glass. Her artistic personality did not suddenly hatch in the last two months to astonish the uninitiated. For over a decade, her thematic coherence, her gaze, and her formal rigor have impressed me. Together, they have produced—without haste, without noise, and without unnecessary sweat—a visual maturity that has made her one of the most precise photographic voices of her generation.

This recognition can be read as a passage—whether outbound, inbound, or both at once—between the commercial and the institutional: from the gallery sphere toward museums, cultural centers, and public art spaces. And, of course, as the consolidation of an artist who widens the symbolic spectrum of contemporary Cuban photography.

I once told someone that Evelyn was like a war correspondent—quick, agile, almost reckless—operating on the front lines of intimacy. Congratulations, Evelyn.