PUBLIC ART, PROJECTS, COLLABORATIONS, RESIDENCIES, AND OTHER THINGS…
Shupingagua was a solo exhibition presented with the support of Tunnel Projects. The work continues Sterling Rook’s interest in ancestry, material memory, and the idea that our ancestors are still trying to speak through us. Centered on the story of his great-grandfather, Miguel Nava Shupingagua, the exhibition draws from family writing, Peruvian history, fiber, metal, and image-making as a way to return to a history that is both personal and partially obscured. Rather than treating ancestry as something distant or fixed in the past, Shupingagua considers it as an active force—one that moves through materials, gestures, craft, and the body. The project was featured by the Miami Herald as part of its coverage on Tunnel Project, and Rook was also interviewed in Burnaway by writer Alex Martinez. As an AIRIE Fellow, Rook’s research was further supported by AIRIE through an Art Hang at Soho House Miami, which included a public conversation with curator Catharine Camargo of Queue Gallery.
Sterling Rook was selected as an 2025 AIRIE (Artists in Residence in Everglades) Fellow, a month-long residency inside Everglades National Park dedicated to connecting artists with the park’s cultural and ecological landscape. During his residency, he researched and built a Glades skiff—a traditional flat-bottomed boat once central to life in the Everglades—drawing from the legacy of master boatbuilder Glen Simmons. The work functioned both as a vessel and as a sculptural project, bridging historical craft with contemporary explorations of place, ecology, and survival.
Sterling Rook’s Miami Rope Bridge (2023) was a large-scale public art project constructed from handmade rope woven out of donated and upcycled clothing, created through collective participation and traditional craft techniques. Serving as both a functional structure and a symbolic crossing, the work transformed everyday materials into a site of connection, craft, and resilience. It was finally realized onsite at Arch Creek Park as part of The Department of Reflection: Bridge Deconstruction exhibition at The Wolfsonian–FIU, and was made possible through a Knight Arts Challenge Grant with the support of partnering institutions including the Bakehouse Art Complex, Oolite Arts, Dade Heritage Trust, Fiber Art Miami Association (FAMA), and the Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science.
In 2021, Sterling Rook served as a Home + Away Resident at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, in partnership with Oolite Arts, after being recommended for the opportunity. The residency offered him focused studio time to advance his practice, engage with fellow artists, and draw on both natural and cultural inspiration at ACA. The experience deepened his conceptual work, expanded his methods, and strengthened his connection to the artistic community.
In 2021, Sterling Rook was selected by The Bass Museum of Art to create a site-specific mural for their Walgreens Windows Project Space at 23rd Street and Collins Avenue in Miami Beach. His work, Bass Famous Tabernacle, reimagined the relationship between text and textile by incorporating words drawn from the hand-painted signage of local businesses and places of worship across Miami. Mapping neighborhoods such as Allapattah, Liberty City, Opa-Locka, and Hialeah, the mural functioned as a painted textile-poem—an homage to Miami’s cultural fabric and a reflection on memory, belonging, and the shifting urban landscape.
In 2020, Sterling Rook was one of the artists selected for the inaugural edition of No Vacancy, a juried competition presented by the City of Miami Beach that transforms the city’s historic hotels into cultural destinations. Chosen through a competitive process led by the City of Miami Beach Art in Public Places Committee, the Cultural Arts Council, and the MBVCA, Rook received a $10,000 project stipend to realize his installation. The exhibition celebrated Miami Beach’s creative community, positioning artists within the city’s famed hotel spaces and awarding $25,000 in prizes split between a public vote and a jury composed of leaders from The Bass Museum of Art, Oolite Arts, and Pérez Art Museum Miami.
In 2020, Sterling Rook participated in the Fågelbo (The Nest) Residency, a collaborative program launched by Wild Beast Collective to support performance and interdisciplinary art. Working remotely due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Rook was based at the Deering Estate in Miami while collaborating with dance artist Stine Marcinkowski Pettersson at Wu Art Space in Falkenberg, Sweden. Their project, Be-longing: sensorial movement post-Coronavirus, explored disorientation, belonging, and new forms of human connection through walking practices, sensory engagement, and cross-continental workshops.