An evolving artistic world where fashion, textile, collage, murals, moving image, and public participation meet.
THE PROCESS
Before Heart of Community was an installation, it began as a research inquiry centered on one question:
What does it mean to be a woman in contemporary Latin America?
Carried between Mexico, New York, and Argentina, the question led to a years-long quest: traveling across cities, photographing and documenting, interviewing, and meeting culture where it was.
From Quinceañera celebrations in New York, to retrieving an archive of personal family photographs from the town hall office of a small town in Argentina; from markets in Mexico to vernacular altars displaying worship at almost every corner.
The research not only questioned belonging at its core, but began to propose a space for conversations around female rites of passage, identity configuration, culture and belonging, and migration.
THE METHOD
The method combines visual and ethnographic research, historical inquiry, community participation, documentation, creative translation, and storytelling, all brought together through a creative process that informs dresses, murals, video art, collages, installations, and other mixed-media outcomes.
THE "HEART OF COMMUNITY" METHODOLOGY
1.
Research the Cultural Context
Conduct deep visual and ethnographic research into the local culture, its communities, traditions, symbols, rituals, and visual language.
2.
Engage the Community
Create a participatory activity that invites members of the community into the creative process, potentially gathering photographs, drawings, stories, and other material that can become part of the evolving archive.
3.
The Heart of Community Archive
Photograph and document relevant visuals, stories, objects, symbols, and cultural references to create a place-specific Heart of Community archive.
4.
From Research to Creative Outcome
Transform the findings from the research, archive, and community engagement into a creative outcome that reflects the visual language, cultural context, and identity of the place.
5.
Document the
Making
Document the research, participation, and creative process so that the making itself becomes a compelling storytelling piece, showing not only the final work but how the community and cultural context shaped its creation.
CONSTRUCTING IDENTITIES
The first creative outcome of the research was Constructing Identities, an immersive installation exhibited at the Art and Design Gallery at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York in 2021–2022. Bringing together eight fashion looks, large-scale murals, collage, and video art, the project translated research around womanhood, rites of passage, migration, cultural identity, and belonging into a multidimensional visual environment.
Developed with support from Swarovski and Mimaki, Constructing Identities established the visual and methodological foundations from which Heart of Community would later evolve.
FROM ARCHIVE TO MURAL
MURALS • 2021 • COLLAGE • COMMUNITY
The research later evolved into murals, where the visual archive took on a more expansive, site-specific form. Through collage, religious imagery, popular culture, family references, and vernacular visual language, these compositions brought together fragments gathered across Mexico, Argentina, and the United States into layered visual environments.
Since 2020, this mural language has traveled across cities and contexts, from Miami art galleries and Pen Projects to creative hub Skep360, Boreal Studio, and in-situ interventions in Mexico City, among others. Through each new manifestation, the murals continued to expand the visual language that would eventually become central to the evolving Heart of Community universe.
Welcome to
Heart of Community
ANABELLA BERGERO • FAENA ART PROJECT ROOM • 2023
THE INSTALLATION
Heart of Community reached its fullest spatial expression in 2023 at the Faena Art Project Room in Miami Beach, where the research evolved into an immersive installation bringing together fashion, textile art, collage, murals, and moving image. The space transformed the visual archive into a layered Latin American Pop environment shaped by religious imagery, popular culture, family memory, femininity, and ritual.
Designed not only to be observed but inhabited, the installation became a living cultural hub where thousands of visitors encountered the work through exhibitions, workshops, conversations, and creative activations. In this form, Heart of Community became both an artwork and a space for collective experience, extending the original research into a public conversation around identity, womanhood, culture, migration, memory, and belonging.
In recognition of its cultural impact, the City of Miami Beach honored Anabella Bergero with the 2023 Hispanic Heritage Award in the Artist category.
ACT I
IIn May 2023, "La Virgencita Dress" was awarded Best Dressed at the Faena Art Gala in Miami. Two years later, in 2025, the dress returned to the Faena Penthouse in a performance that continued the story where it began.
FAENA ART GALA • 2023
LA FAMILIA
FAENA • 2025
ACT II - LA FAMILIA
The performance then opened into a more intimate chapter, as family entered the space and the work shifted from individual memory to collective belonging. Voices, laughter, gestures, and shared presence transformed the penthouse into a living portrait of family, a reminder that identity is not formed alone, but through the people, rituals, and relationships we carry with us.
FROM HEART OF COMMUNITY TO "La Virgencita Silk Scarf"
FASHION IS ART DROP • 2026
FASHION IS ART
Quinceañeras Walmart
LOS ANGELES - MIAMI • 2024
The world of Heart of Community has continued to grow through new collaborations and creative spin-offs. In 2024, a creative partnership with Walmart brought the visual language and research behind the project into a new context through the Quinceañeras project, celebrating Latin American traditions, fashion, identity, and community at a broader scale.
Each new spin-off builds on the spirit of the original, allowing the research and visual language of Heart of Community to evolve into new formats, partnerships, and cultural contexts while continuing to create spaces where people can connect, create, and experience culture together.
Heart of Community Ohio
COLUMBUS FASHION ALLIANCE • 2025
LA COMUNIDAD SE PINTA
A medida que Heart of Community continuó evolucionando, la estética desarrollada a través de sus murales, instalaciones, moda y collage comenzó a convertirse en un lenguaje visual propio, uno que podía viajar, adaptarse y ser reinterpretado en nuevos contextos.
En febrero de 2026, Heart of Community llegó a Ciudad de México a través de una intervención creativa en el Padel Team Gourmet Grand Slam en Padel Co Reforma.
La activación invitó a la comunidad a pintar e intervenir juntos un lienzo collageado, siguiendo el lenguaje visual desarrollado a través de instalaciones y exposiciones anteriores. Lo que comenzó como una tarde compartida se convirtió en un acto colectivo de autoría, permitiendo que la propia comunidad participara en la evolución de la obra.
Cada trazo continuó la historia y expandió el universo visual de Heart of Community hacia una nueva ciudad.
