The Doral Contemporary Art Museum breaks creative boundaries to offer culture to all.
Artist Patricia Cook showing her artwork “Time Cast Its Spell On You” to DORCAM visitors PHOTO COURTESY OF DORCAM
The city of Doral, located in west Miami Dade County, is home to 76,000 people, according to a 2020 census. It is also home to luxury hotels, two major media outlets, Dolphin Mall, and, more recently, an art museum. The Doral Contemporary Art Museum, or DORCAM, was founded in 2017 thanks to the impetus of two citizens, Marcelo Llobell and Flor Mayoral.
After five years of arranging roving exhibitions throughout Doral under the umbrella Art Industry Movement, Llobell and Mayoral recognized the need to establish a museum. An institution would provide the city’s constituents with formal contemporary cultural content and attract art fans to the city from further afield. In 2019, DORCAM acquired independent nonprofit status and built a board of trustees led by Ingrid Rockefeller.
Patricia Cook, “Waves” on view at DORCAM. PHOTO COURTESY OF DORCAM
Today, the museum’s team operates from their Doral office while programming a temporary space at CityPlace Doral. With more than 50 exhibitions and activations, the museum has uniquely positioned its bilingual program as topical and eclectic—embracing contemporary creative collaborations locally and internationally, as well as across artistic disciplines.
Drawing inspiration from the 1919-1933 German Bauhaus movement that melded art, architecture, design, fashion, music, and more, the museum defines itself by adopting a cross-disciplinary approach that ensures its activities remain flexible, relevant and widely accessible. Llobell, now DORCAM’s Director, shares, “Doral has a young population with many families from different parts of Latin America, a vibrant industrial and a business scene. We believe these audiences deserve to have solid and varied cultural offerings.”
On-site participation includes art talks, workshop series and rotating exhibitions. Responding to current affairs and adopting civic responsibility as a barometer, the museum’s latest showcase Earth Day: Artists Celebrate Our Planet With Care, organized by independent curator Dainy Tapia and the former University of Miami Professor J. Tomas Lopez, included artwork by Miami artists made from recycled materials and addressed sustainability. Other projects have included the annual Women of Vision exhibition, celebrating international and local women artists, and fashion shows with garments designed and created using upcycling processes.
“Our purpose is to bring diverse projects to Doral so that residents do not have to travel far to enjoy quality cultural programs while at the same time attracting visitors from other latitudes, in turn benefiting the city’s economy and cultural enrichment,” explains Llobell.
The museum also reaches beyond Florida. International collaborations have included the museum hosting the local chapter of Art Connection Foundation’s New Media Festival, including hundreds of works by international artists, participation with Miami photographers in PhotoAlicante, a photography festival in Spain, and a Curator Conversations series accessible to anyone online.
Unlike many contemporary art museums that focus on visual arts with a stricter and focused classification, DORCAM casts a wide net that purposefully blurs modern art boundaries to ensure its program offers a connection to creativity for everyone. 5775 NW 84th Ave, Doral, dorcam.org
Photography by: Photo Courtesy: DORCAM
