“We Belong Here”: Tavares Strachan at the Bass Museum of Miami Beach

Who are “we”? What does it mean to “belong”? And what place is “here”? These three questions stem from the neon light installation We Belong Here by Tavares Strachan (Nassau, Bahamas, 1979), part of the Bass Museum’s collection in Miami Beach. Both subjects and locations are left in suspense before the words in neon. “We” could be anyone. “Here” could be anywhere. The unsettling element is the assertion of belonging, presented casually, almost like a sign in a store window. So, what is this realm or place to which we supposedly belong?

Art can be a provocation, especially when artists project their work from (and toward) a place different from their origin. Born in Nassau, Bahamas, and trained in New York, Tavares Strachan creates a nomadic world where identity isn’t a fixed essence but something shaped by context. Displayed within the museum’s spaces, the work gains a particular resonance, even more so given that the museum is in Miami, a city that represents a “here” saturated with mixtures.

Some might think Miami is an unremarkable place, inhabited by three kinds of people: those who work hard, those who play without a care, and those who are just passing through. Yet Strachan’s installation suggests that all these people belong here, each choosing their way of being—fleetingly or “full-time.” The same could be said of those of us who, like me, enter a museum and feel part of what happens there, even if it’s only “part-time.”