The Tropics, The Moon, and Mars is a new mari nagem immersive installation that unites light, sound, sculpture, painting, and digital experiments. Within it, Nagem constructs a post-natural tropical environment in which heat reorganizes relationships between bodies, technologies, geological formations, and living systems. The installation is accompanied by a commissioned sound work from Mapuche-Brazilian musician Brisa Flow. It is described as a temporal and evolving choreography of resistance in which survival is neither guaranteed nor singular.
The installation combines light, sound, sculpture, painting, and digital experiments.
Nagem’s work treats the tropics as a living system rather than a backdrop, and readers interested in that kind of ecological entanglement may enjoy Art Installations Exploring Quantum Physics and Ecology, which looks at how environments and scientific ideas shape one another.
For the closing of this cue art exhibition, CUE commissioned and hosted SPACE MEAL, a roving multi-course dinner by artist and chef Tessa Liebman. Presented as an interplanetary meal of earthly provocations, the menu included seven vegetarian offerings that drew on themes from Nagem’s works. Earlier, on Saturday, August 22, CUE hosted a jewelry-making workshop led by multimedia artist, engineer, and educator Thiago Hersan. On Saturday, September 19, CUE kicked off Climate Week NYC with a pop-up selection of books curated by Interspecies Library founder Oscar Salguero.
Mari Nagem was born in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and is a multidisciplinary artist conceptually driven by the relationship between nature and technology. She is based in Brooklyn. This show is her first New York solo exhibition. Nagem was selected through CUE’s open call and is an awardee of that call for solo exhibitions.
Inside the mari nagem immersive installation
The piece begins from a simple but unsettling proposition: humanity dreams of becoming an interplanetary species while remaining unable to live collaboratively with the terrestrial ecologies it already inhabits. Rather than presenting planetary expansion as technological triumph, Nagem considers how fantasies of the Moon and Mars extend the logics that have long shaped extractive relationships on Earth. The tropics appear as climate, home, and projection, a lived geography shaped by extraction, ecological transformation, and a long history of being imagined from elsewhere. Exhibition text and curatorial guidance are by Jinny Khanduja.
If the Moon and Mars fantasies in this show caught your imagination, Surreal Astronaut Imagery and Cosmic AI Dreams offers a dreamlike take on space exploration through digital artwork.
The gallery is at 137 W. 25th Street, New York, NY. It is open Wednesdays through Saturdays, from 12 to 6 pm, and no registration is required to visit.
The show opens on Saturday, July 11, 2026, as part of West Side Fest, a celebration of arts and culture across Manhattan‘s west side. The opening reception runs from 3 to 6 pm the same day. It features music by Fernanda Steinmann, bites by Brigadeiro Bakery, and a custom cocktail supported by an in-kind donation of drinks from Cappelletti. The reception is free and all are welcome. RSVPs are requested but not required.
Sources: Mari Nagem: The Tropics, The Moon, and Mars – Announcements – e, Opening Reception: “The Tropics, The Moon, and Mars” by Mari Nagem, CUE Art · Discovered via designboom
Frequently asked questions
Where is the Mari Nagem exhibition at CUE located and when is it open?
The gallery is at 137 W. 25th Street in New York, NY. It is open Wednesdays through Saturdays, from 12 to 6 pm, and no registration is required to visit.
When does the Mari Nagem show open and is the reception free?
The show opens on Saturday, July 11, 2026, as part of West Side Fest. The opening reception runs from 3 to 6 pm that day and is free, with RSVPs requested but not required.
Who is Mari Nagem and is this her first New York show?
Mari Nagem is a multidisciplinary artist born in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, who is based in Brooklyn and whose work is driven by the relationship between nature and technology. This show is her first New York solo exhibition, and she was selected through CUE’s open call.
Who created the sound work included in The Tropics, the Moon, and Mars?
The installation is accompanied by a commissioned sound work from Mapuche-Brazilian musician Brisa Flow. The installation itself combines light, sound, sculpture, painting, and digital experiments.
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