Whether working with porcelain or spray paint on wood panel, Morel Doucet begins with beauty. His goal is always to entice his viewers, to instantly captivate and tempt even the most unexpected audiences to engage with issues of displacement, the climate crisis, and what it means to be an immigrant in the U.S. He approaches his activism similarly because, to him, they’re one and the same.

Doucet (previously) has become a steward of sorts as he advocates for his community in Little Haiti and grapples with how gentrification will ultimately change the Miami neighborhood. While vibrant and heavy with alluring botanical motifs, his work reflects destruction and highlights the flora, fauna, and people threatened by developers and anxiety about rising seas.

I spoke with Doucet via Zoom in September 2023, a few months after he closed his first solo exhibition at Galerie Myrtis and premiered his works in Chicago in At the Precipice: Responses to the Climate Crisis. We discuss those milestones, how his upbringing on his grandfather’s farm laid the foundation for his work, his proclivity for poetry, and why it’s important for him to tell his own stories.

This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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Grace Ebert: What are we looking at right now?

Morel Doucet: This is a recent commissioned piece that I did for a group show at the Little Haiti Culture Center. The title is “From Bones to Belonging,” and the exhibition is looking at the Lincoln Park Memorial, which is a cemetery that houses a lot of the Black founders of Miami Dade. Over time, the cemetery has grown with vegetation, and so this exhibition is bringing light to the legacy of Black Miamians and their contribution to the city. I was asked by Miami photographer Carl Juste to do the skulls for the exhibition.

The subject matter and imagery are not in line with what I typically explore in my work, but I wanted to find a way to pay homage to various cultures. Blackness is not a monolith–you have Haitians, Bahamians, Jamaicans, Black Americans–and so I wanted to find ways to represent that diversity, which is why all the skulls are slightly different.

Grace: How did you decide on the patterning?

Morel: They’re very organic. I was trying to be mindful with the materials that I already have in the studio. All of the skulls are ceramic porcelain. Some of them have ceramic decals. I also experimented with different glazes and spray paint, as well. I was just using everything that I had available to me instead of buying new stuff.

Grace: Let’s talk about your connection to Miami. You so often work with issues that are directly affecting your community, especially your neighborhood. I would love to know why it’s important to you to connect with not only the people who are around you but also with the native plants and animals in the area.

Morel: I was born back in Haiti, but I grew up on a farm and was raised by my grandfather. And so at an early age, I had an innate understanding of our relationship to the environment. With my grandfather, whenever we would cut something down, we would always plant a few things. Growing up with that mindset, and then transitioning from Haiti to the U.S., I noticed a lot of food waste, a lot of resources that are not being fully utilized. I noticed that within our culture and how we consume things, there’s this rapid waste all across the board, from food to common items like clothes, things like that.

I’ve lived in Little Haiti for the majority of my life, in and around it. Over the course of the last 20 years, I’ve witnessed the rapid change of development in the city. It went from a neighborhood that was comprised of mostly immigrants trying to survive a nine-to-five to becoming one of the most desired neighborhoods in the city. Because developers want this part of the city now, we’re being pushed out. And it’s really aggressive. As a result, I feel like it’s important to document the changing times because the Little Haiti that I grew up with over the last 20 years is different now, and I can only imagine what the next 10 years are going to look like. I feel like Little Haiti will be wiped off. A lot of the old, cultural nostalgia may not be there. And what is this new part of Miami going to be?

For the exhibition I had with my gallery, I started to look into the neighborhoods. Little Haiti sits on one of the higher elevations in the city. With the threat of seawater rise and if Miami Beach is wiped completely off the map, Little Haiti will probably be the next beachfront. As a result of that, the developers are like, “Oh, let’s start building in this part of the city now because it sits on a higher elevation.” Most of the time they buy a house, and they demolish it. Once the house is demolished, it becomes vacant land. The leaves, the flora and fauna, become the residue of what the energy and the experience of that space [used to be]. By going to these sites, gathering the plants, and incorporating them into the work, in a sense, it’s like carbon mapping, a carbon footprint, of that experience.

“Night Garden: In Moonlight the Stars Chatter” references the vastness of the land and the fencing. You can look at it as a portal, as a garden that becomes a site of memory, a site to honor the experience of what was happening there. This was the intent behind this body of work: pairing fencing [from the lots] with colors that are very bright. They’re very vibrant, which goes back to my Haitian roots. The colors in Haiti, the architecture, tend to be super, super bright.

Some of these iconographies are almost identical to Haitian metal workers who passed away in the 2010 earthquake. In a spiritual sense, I was using imagery techniques that come from my Haitian roots and some of the fabrication of the French scene and the metalwork. This is the base of what I was trying to explore with the solo show. There are a lot of moments of experimenting with the fencing and the metalwork. I’m referencing a place of home. What does that home look like? And how is that home transforming over time?

The largest installation in the show is comprised of 18 portraits, and the title is “God Told Me Stars Used to be Audible Through the Window Sills.” Again, I’m thinking about memory and the energy of the people that live in this neighborhood, how it’s transforming over time. I’m hoping it transforms into something better. Gentrification is not necessarily always bad. When it’s brought up, it’s normally in a negative term, but there are some parts in the neighborhood that could use some development. So I’m hoping that the change will give empowerment and benefit to some of the homeowners that are there.

Grace: I feel like it’s more of a question of community investment and how whoever is gentrifying is actually working with the people who are there. Who are the people in these portraits?

Morel: Those are the residents.

The developers are trying to coin Little Haiti “Magic City.” It’s a monstrosity of a project. There’s nowhere for the locals to exist. They’ve proposed mixed-development housing, but the rich do not want to live with the lower class. Their solution was to create a community fund, where people could tap into this money, and they could make things on their own. But when you have a community that lacks the support and the infrastructure to really manage funds properly, it becomes a waste. We need somebody within their team who’s going to successfully manage the fund. Don’t just throw money at it. You need to properly invest and develop that money so that it’s going to be there for 100 years to come.

They use this very coded language. The same developer was fighting to call the neighborhood its historical name, which is Lemon City. This part of the city used to be very populated with lemon trees, but that was back in the 1930s. That was part of Miami at the time, but in terms of the development contribution, the Haitian community is really who has contributed to the city. The developers wanted to undermine and erase that because they were trying to avoid branding it Little Haiti.

The community is going to be nowhere in this. This building is for people from out of town, from California, from New York. These condos are going to be like, $6,000 a month to rent, which is three times the average of what most residents in Little Haiti make. I don’t see where the residents fit into it because they’re going to be priced out. This is not affordable for anybody that lives there.

Going back to these homes that are being demolished, I’ve been gathering the metal exteriors and repurposing them to create what works with them. When you pair the leaves that come from the neighborhood with the metalwork and the residents, it’s essentially a map of the people and this experience.

Grace: It’s documenting a very specific time, which is really beautiful. What was the process like of preparing for that solo show at Galerie Myrtis?

Morel: It was absolutely labor intensive. I was supposed to have that solo show two years before, but when COVID hit, it completely shut down production. I had to find a way to pull through.

These portraits are all hand-cut with an exacto blade. The process is also very labor intensive–I’m not only repurposing and fabricating the metal facade, but I’m also cutting each of these portraits by hand. I’m not only having an interaction with the resident, but the post-production is very intimate, as well.

Another idea that I was thinking about within the exhibition was the idea of rest as an act of protest. Growing up with my mother, for example, she was working two jobs at points in her life to support us. As an immigrant, you don’t have that luxury sometimes. [The proposed developments] will probably bring a lot of jobs for people in the neighborhood, but then they become part of that same cycle where you’re just working to provide, but you won’t necessarily enjoy the luxuries of it because you can’t afford it or you don’t have the luxury of time to go and experience it.

In “Three Black Crow (Black Boys Rest on the Mythos of Fallin’ Dreams),” the idea is that as an immigrant, you have this big dream, but you’re caught up in the cycle of perpetual work, that’s working to survive. And it’s not necessarily having the luxury to dream and escape from that.

Grace: You’re so engaged in all of these very important political issues, and you just referred to this piece as an act of protest. I’m curious if you consider yourself an activist.

I don’t have to say I’m an activist. The work that I make is inherently that.

Morel Doucet

Morel: As an artist, the work that I make is inherently political. I consider all of my work to be double-edged swords: they entice and lure the viewer with beauty while reminding them of their complacency within the dying environment. I don’t have to say I’m an activist. The work that I make is inherently that.

Even on the commercial side, I did a project for Facebook, in their corporate office here in Miami. This is a piece that I did about the bleaching of the coral reef. It’s on the 20-something floor and overlooks the Biscayne Bay. When you’re walking in front of it, again, it’s aesthetically very beautiful. But then, as you’re walking by, you’re like, “Oh, why is everything white?” It takes a deeper dive into coral reef bleaching and how this is having an adverse effect on marine life, which is important for fishing and food. It becomes this domino effect.

I approach a lot of my work in a similar way, where there’s craftsmanship, technique, and then presentation, and then messaging. Messaging always is third or secondary in the work. I let the viewer appreciate the work first. It gives you permission to experience and live within the work without necessarily having to be overly burdened with this messaging. This is where climate activists are failing. If you go into a museum and you’re throwing paint on something, then you’re having the opposite effect of what you’re trying to achieve. Art should be used as a tool to further enhance what you’re doing. Why are you attacking artists or artworks of historical importance? I think it’s counterproductive to do that. There are successful ways to engage, have moments of play, without having to damage something.

A good example of that was when I did a project with Meta for Art Basel last year. I worked with an artist in Amsterdam, and we created this augmented experience [that reinterpreted the coral work]. It went from being this beautiful piece in their corporate office that was only accessible to their employees to bringing the work accessible to the public. It was a fun interactive.

As an artist who has been working in this capacity, these are more impactful than going into an institution and throwing paint on something. The public is having fun, and they’re learning in the same process. This is the same approach I bring to my classroom as an educator working in the museum: let people have permission to play, let them experience the work on their own terms, and then be like, “Oh, by the way, this is what this work is about.”

Grace: We talked a lot about beauty and using visuals to entice people and bring them into the climate conversation with At the Precipice. But I’m wondering, when you’re creating, who you’re making your work for. Who is your audience?

Morel: The audience is everyone. White Noise, for example, is an exhibition that I did at the African Heritage Cultural Center. I was intentionally being multigenerational. I had these pedestals that were 46 inches tall, and the younger kids in the exhibition could walk around, but they could only glimpse what was stationed on the pedestals. I was interested in the idea that these younger generations could see a little bit of the threat, but they have no permission. They’re just simply going to inherit the world that we are giving to them. So in the exhibition, I made sure that the pedestal was much higher so that all of the kids aged 10 and under could see the work directly. The pedestals were fabricated at eye level for the adults, so they were directly confronted with the work.

Going back to my audience, my audience is really everyone, but I try to focus on Black and Brown communities. Based on my experience, when I’m in rooms talking about climate change, there’s not a lot of representation for people that look like me. It’s not that they don’t care. They don’t have the luxury because they’re working. They’re trying to provide food for their family.

This work, for example, is called “White Noise, Let the Choir Sing a Magnified Silence (25 Affirmation).” It’s an allegory to talk about how we’re complacent. We’re sitting down, and we’re letting the destruction happen before our eyes. It’s a global effort, a global task to work towards that change, and it affects everybody. Within the work that I do, I try to highlight Black and Brown communities because they’re not represented in that conversation.

Grace: The title of that work is so poetic, and I know you have a background in creative writing. I’m very curious about your relationship to poetry now and how you title your work because they are all so beautiful.

Morel: English is not my first language. Growing up in the early ‘90s, I tried very hard to hide my Haitian identity. I tried to assimilate. I was very particular about diction and pronunciation. Even in my college experience, a lot of my schoolmates did not know I was Haitian-American at all. It was not until my mom came up to visit me, and they heard me speaking another language that they had to say, “What is that?” That’s Haitian Creole. “You’re not Black American?” No, I’m Haitian-American.

I was very much an introvert, very shy, very reserved. I had a teacher for writing in high school, who said, “You know, Morel, you’re really great writer. You should really consider taking a few courses in college. I think you’ll do yourself a disservice if you do not explore this area.”

I learned that if I did not tell my own stories on my own terms, then somebody else would do it for me.

Morel Doucet

I went to MICA, and then I met Dr. Chezia Thompson Cager. She’s a professor in writing and poetry at MICA. I had a liking to her. She was this Black Ph.D. When it came to representation, I never saw that before. By taking her class, I really liked poetry, that style of writing. In my senior year of MICA, I was her teaching assistant, and she got sick during that semester. I ended up having to take over four weeks of her class. I was absolutely terrified. I remember she pulled me aside, and she goes, “I wouldn’t have hired you as my teacher’s assistant if I knew you didn’t have the capacity to teach this class. Here’s my syllabus. You’re going to teach this class. Once I get better, I’ll come back.” She stayed home, rested, and she showed up that last week of finals. That gave me a boost of confidence that I didn’t see myself. She did, but I didn’t see it at that particular time. It was those particular experiences that led me into the realm of museum education.

Going back to answer your question, being Haitian American, coming from a really proud history of being Haitian, I learned that if I did not tell my own stories on my own terms, then somebody else would do it for me. Writing gave me access and an even playing field to tell my own stories in my own words. With my titles, I use them as a kind of gateway to let the viewer figure out what the work is about.

Grace: What’s your relationship to Haiti now?

Morel: My mom is one of 11 siblings, and most have two or three kids. I have over 35 cousins, and so there is a deep-rooted connection to Haiti. My grandfather on my mom’s side is still with us. He’s almost 90 and is still farming. Luckily, for my family, we live in the north, and a lot of the political turmoil that you’re seeing on news media, we’re not directly impacted by it. The hardest thing has been inflation and the resources. The gangs that control the capital have been disrupting the flow of certain goods, and so things have inflated as a result. But in terms of physical well-being, they’re better off than a lot of people in the south.

The piece you have in the exhibition at the Design Museum of Chicago was originally commissioned by the American Craft Council. The title is “The Hills We Die On (Flowers for President Jovenel Moïse).” It’s about the assassination and a little bit of his upbringing is behind the motif that I’m using in the work. There are moments in my work where my Haitian culture and identity come through, either in color and texture or just through wordplay.

“Tea With the Queen” is another great example. This piece took a deep dive into the idea of reparations. I’m imagining if the French government and Haiti got back together and had tea to talk about the idea of reparations, giving back Haiti the money that they paid for their freedom. What would that look like? What the vessels in the conversation be?

Grace: I was listening to a podcast that you were on, and you were talking about not learning Haitian history in high school. And obviously, you put so much research into every piece. I’m wondering how the experience has been for you to go back and learn about Haitian history and also what your research process is like now. I imagine you read a lot.

Morel: A lot, yeah! I’ve gotten better at researching since developing my museum curriculum. My last job was at the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami. My original title was the curriculum and tour coordinator, and then I became the school program coordinator. Online resources were one of my main projects.

Grace: You just stopped doing this not too long ago, right?

Morel: Last May. It’s been over a year now.

I’d been developing these curricula for the museum over the time I was there. I had all of these lesson plans for different grade levels from high school to middle school to elementary. In developing these lesson plans, I had to be really good at research, reading, and knowing how to take something that’s very dense and paring it down to where a third grader could understand or how to upscale it and make it a high school lesson plan. All these are skills that I eventually sharpened over the course of the last couple of years. This is like a legacy that I leave behind for the museum. And I’m very proud of it. I’m very proud of that work.

When it comes to researching the work, I’m reading books, looking at articles. I’m also interested in the material culture of certain things that I’m using. For example, “Night Garden: God Was Not The Author Of Confusion And Despair” has black glitter that looks like mica. If you’re standing in front of it, there’s this beautiful shimmer that happens in front of the work. All of this makes me very intentional with the material that I’m using in the work, and all of that comes from the research that I’m exploring within the work.

Grace: What drew you to education?

Morel: I started off as a young museum educator. I had my interview at the Miami Art Museum, which was closing down, and I started working at the Perez Art Museum Miami, which opened up a few months later. I was so early on in the museum that I had a construction hat on. It wasn’t fully open to the public yet, and so as an employee, by code, we had to wear a construction hat. I was probably like eight months out of college, one of the youngest educators on the team. To join a new museum and be at the forefront of developing the foundation of what the education program would look like, it was absolutely life-changing. I learned so much over the course of that time. Eventually, I was able to take what I learned to join ICA Miami.

I enjoy teaching. I wouldn’t be where I am today without the teachers who saw something in me. I got into the magnet art program because of an art teacher. She pulled my mom aside and was like, “Listen, your son’s got this talent, and there are these programs that will take his raw talent and cultivate it. Eventually, this could lead to a career for him if he really enjoys doing it.” The fact that my mom had that foresight and that she valued what the teacher had to say, I was able to get put into a specialized program.

I auditioned for the magnet program in fourth grade, and I got in in fifth grade. From fifth grade to high school, I was in a specialized art program. Painting and drawing have been my foundation, and ceramics came later on. I didn’t realize the privilege that I had growing up in the ‘90s. A lot of these schools don’t have these art programs anymore. The luxuries that I experienced growing up are not necessarily available to kids anymore because art funding is being cut back in schools.

I initially thought I was going to become an illustrator. Then when I realized what an illustrator was, I was like, “Oh, I’m never gonna have freedom. I’m gonna have to make work for an art director all the time.” I eventually left the entire field, and I just embraced making my own work instead.

Grace: Did you ever think that you would not be an artist?

Morel: There was a point, yes. I told myself that if I wasn’t an artist, I probably would have been somewhere in the medical field. It would give me the opportunity to work with my hands. Maybe some kind of surgeon or something of that capacity.

I can only talk about what I’ve lived and what I’ve experienced, and I think that is enough.

Morel Doucet

Grace: I’m curious about the way that you talk about yourself. In listening to interviews that you’ve done and reading your conversations, your story, your trajectory, the way that you talk about being an immigrant, being an artist, being from Miami, the traditions that you work within– porcelain and now Afrofuturism–everything feels very precise. Does this way of talking about yourself come really naturally to you?

Morel: Oh, not at all! Not at all. In my everyday me, I’m still an introvert. I perform well as an extrovert. When I’m an educator, I put on my teaching cap, I go into the classroom, and I do what I need to do. But I’m a homebody. I like being in nature, away from the chaos.

But teaching has helped me get over the anxiety. What I tell my kids is, “Be you. You’re enough. Be authentic to yourself. Tell what you know and what you’ve lived. The right people will gravitate towards you, and the right opportunities will come. Don’t conform for the industry or don’t conform because it’s trendy. Being authentic is what eventually will get you to where you need to be.” I move that way. I can only talk about what I’ve lived and what I’ve experienced, and I think that is enough. The right moment, the right opportunities, will come as a result of that. I don’t need to conform or adjust myself in order to fit a certain mold.

Grace: What’s next for you? What are you working on?

Morel: Right now, I’m in a little bit of an artist block. I just had this major solo show in the spring. I just finished a commission. This is my last big project that I’ve done for the summer, so now I’m in this period where I’m trying to force myself to take a break, take a vacation, recalibrate, recharge before I can go back into production again.

What is ahead of me is public art. I’m working on two major public art commissions. One of them is for a new courthouse in downtown Miami. I’ve been commissioned to do something special for the waiting rooms. I’m also working on a tile project for a mixed-development housing in Miami. I’m nervous. Public art is scary for me. I told myself that I wouldn’t have gotten here if it was not the right time. Everything is timing. If I got the opportunity, then it’s the right time.

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Three of Doucet’s porcelain busts, including “The Hills We Die On,” are on view in At the Precipice through October 30 at the Design Museum of Chicago. Find more of his work on his site and Instagram.