Mindful Presence Manifesto
I take from impressions of past experiences, memories, and influences.
I hold onto a past that latches onto generational cycles.
I make of forms an act of life, playing with the subtleness of what surrounds us.
I shape a physical entity from emotive connotations that intuitively guides themselves for their worth.
I play with various mediums to explore the psyche’s connection with the world.
I develop from a sake of being, of co-existing, and of maturing.
I will reconstruct the idea of our human presence in relation to each other and objects.
I am an artist that creates…

Artist StatementMy practice began with listening; to people, to materials, to memory, to the quiet tensions that live inside everyday forms. I work with industrial and found objects such as metal, concrete, plastic, fabric, jute, and thread. These materials are not neutral; they carry histories of labor, use, and touch. By bringing the materials together, artifacts are left to inquire into the dynamics of connection, specifically with those that nurture and the spaces in which that occurs. Even the most ordinary dwelling carries a charged intimacy; a space where nothing is hidden, yet much remains unspoken, and where cause and effect leaves a lasting imprint over time. I trace back to how my surroundings were influenced by my mother’s and grandmother’s labor, the sense of displacement that emerges from fragmented family histories, and the absence of a unified lineage. A never-ending cycle that continues to shape my body, my gestures, and my relationship to material.
Performance is an essential extension of my sculptural practice as it becomes an embodied attentiveness to breath, repetition, weight, and duration. Through movement, I use my body as both material and instrument, activating sculptures as sites of lived experience rather than static objects. These actions draw from inherited mundane routines that transform gestures of obligation into ritual. The body becomes an archive of memory. Performance allows me to inhabit the same negotiations present in the sculptures, blurring the boundary between making, doing, and being. I am interested in how connection can feel both supportive and restrictive, how closeness creates pressure, and how balance is often temporary.
Works such as In Tandem, A Cycle of Us, and Walk the Line reflect an attempt to surface the hidden dialogues between our bodies and the material world. I invite viewers to engage in the same space and reconsider the ways we inhabit and interpret the forms that surround us. My work is an offering of subtlety.

Bio
Born in Miami and first-generation Colombian-American, Nicole Shanaya Vega is an interdisciplinary artist who centers her investigations on manipulating materials to explore themes of labor, memory, and connection. Vega received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Florida International University and is currently an MFA candidate at Clemson University. She is the recipient of the R.C. Edwards Fellowship and has participated in group exhibitions including Ruminate on a Heartbreak and Final Sequence. Working across sculpture, performance, printmaking, and textiles, Vega engages industrial and domestic materials, allowing their histories of use to guide each work. Through processes such as sewing, binding, cleaning, and repetition, she creates forms and gestures that reference familial routines and inherited practices, transforming everyday acts into moments of care, ritual, and presence. She draws from a fragmented lineage, often reflecting on this in-between state of displacement and connection. Her practice ultimately offers space for slowing down, listening, and attending to what is often overlooked.

Better to Lean Than to Fall (2026)
Pencil Rods, Gingham Fabric, Clips, Mortar, and Sound

"Better to Lean Than to Fall" utilizes a pencil rod structure to manifest a dwelling in a state of slow-motion collapse. Weaved throughout the frame are gingham patterns, textiles associated with domestic warmth and rendered in a palette of bright pastels and serious tones such as navy blue and dark reds. . By filling sections of the fabric with concrete while leaving others loose, I create a material distortion that reflects how familial tenderness can harden over time. The structure is activated by the muffled sound of my mother’s cries, which lives within the frame as a ghostly presence. This combination of rigid steel and vulnerable audio transforms the house into a vessel for a grief that is deeply felt but rarely spoken. The work ultimately questions the stability of the emotional and architectural structures we rely on for shelter.

Mi Abuela's Shoreline (2026)
Found Gate and Steel

“Mi Abuela’s Shoreline” is an object that transforms a rigid steel gate into a beach chair. While Miami is often idealized as a site of leisure, my grandmother’s life after arriving from Colombia was defined by relentless labor. For her, the beach was a rare, accessible sanctuary from the financial and educational barriers she faced as an immigrant. The work addresses the friction between labor and rest: while the form suggests relaxation, the industrial steel resists physical comfort. For my grandmother, the gate initially signaled the promise of property ownership and the American Dream. However, over time, it became a symbol of exclusion, reflecting the structural limitations that still impact my family. Through this object, I question the true cost of "securing” a place in a new country and the physical exhaustion required to maintain it. With this work, I am still engaging the body, but as an invisible force. I am interested in creating static objects that are mostly activated through the presence and perhaps the physical engagement of the viewer. I utilize elements that we recognize, but are rendered uncanny through material displacement.

Waiting to Enfold What Was Unfolded (2025)
Concrete, Found Fabric, Pencil Rods, Wood, Plastic, and Screws, Dimensions Variable

“Waiting to Enfold What Was Unfolded” is an installation that borrows from architectural and domestic elements to explore a mediation on the labor required to nurture and be nurtured. These are the remnants from the installation which were stacked to rise like a tower and curved in order to allude to a mother’s embrace. Each concrete brick was handmade and wrapped in fabric which takes on a soft texture, creating a contrast with its normally rigid appearance. The fabrics I chose feature patterns that I consider clichéd for mothers, soft tones and delicate florals, but their familiarity evokes a sense of comfort, intimacy, and domestic care. The bricks were impressed with letters and as I grouped them together, they made up a poem I wrote, inscribed like memory itself. The inscriptions are partially legible, inviting viewers to linger and decipher, much like the way we reconstruct and interpret the layered nature of care and imperfection.

Inheritence of Weight (2025) Found Jeans, Found cloth, Eyelets, Jute Yarn, Thread, Broom, Concrete

"Inheritance of Weight" is inspired by a memory of my grandmother who made her own version of a trendy “gypsy” skirt by tearing apart old jeans and sewing them back together by hand; an act that was born from the scarcity of resources. I deconstructed jeans into sections, filled them with wet cement, and hand-sewed them closed with thread. After piecing the skirt back together with eyelets and jute, I then fractured the cured cement with a hammer to grant the skirt a fluid motion, mirroring the broken nature of a displaced lineage. In the performance, I wear the weighted garment and dance to a soundscape of Colombian salsa and my grandmother’s voice. As the cement spills from the denim, I perform a ritual of cleaning up the debris, a gesture that honors her spirit while embodying the limitations she carried as a working-class woman. This act bridges her past aspirations with the realities of labor born from necessity. The leftover cement becomes both a burden and a starting point of what is shaping my foundation.

Inheritence of Weight (2025) Found Jeans, Found cloth, Eyelets, Jute Yarn, Thread, Broom, Concrete

Inheritance of Weight is a performance inspired by a memory of my grandmother who made her own version of a trendy “gypsy” skirt by tearing apart old jeans and sewing them back together by hand. Lacking the means to buy or access what was fashionable and dominant in her younger age, she found her own way to be a part of a cultural identity. That act of creation from scarcity — of making herself visible through care and craft — stayed with me.
For the artifact, I deconstructed a pair of jeans and divided it into sections, which were then filled with wet cement and hand-sewn closed. I joined the pieces back together through using jute and thread so that the fabric would hold the weight. Then I hit the cement with a hammer to bring forth fragmented pieces rather than maintain a solid form so that the skirt would have a sense of fluidity. For the performance, I wear the skirt and dance to the sound of my grandmother’s voice that is overlaid with Colombian salsa, letting intuition take over. The cement spills out slowly, and I attempt to clean it up as it spreads, a ritual that honors my grandmother’s spirit, but also the weight/limitations she carried for being uneducated, a woman, and part of the working class. This act bridges the aspirations she once held with the realities she was forced into — labor not by choice, but by necessity. The cement leftover becomes both burden and foundation: a symbol of generational consequence, migration, and survival.
Alongside the performance, I include a video that documents my process of making the skirt. This behind-the-scenes footage is crucial to the piece as it echoes my grandmother’s own process — sewing alone, repurposing materials, listening to music — a quiet and chosen labor that carried both hope and resilience. By showing how my skirt is made, I honor the invisible work she did, and make the preparation itself a kind of offering to her memory.
My work responds to the erasure of working-class immigrant labor, particularly the feminized roles often assigned to women like my grandmother. I work against a culture that overlooks those who clean, build, and care — those whose dreams were sacrificed to survive. Through performance, material, and ritual, I reclaim these narratives as sites of power, connection, and memory. By combining masculine and feminine materials — denim, concrete, dance, and cleaning — I reflect on how immigrant labor often splits along gendered lines: men into construction, women into domestic work. Both forms of labor are undervalued, yet they build and maintain the very structures we live in.

Second-Hand Binding (2025) Found Linen, Steel Wheel, Thread, and Wood

Performance in which a single, continuous line of fabric wraps around my body, rising upward to form a garment. A process that mirrors how family narratives are fragmented and reconstructed in memory. The resulting dress holds tension between protection and restriction.

Undergrad Work

01-01-2025 (2024)
Rebar, Plastic, Lentils, Jute, T.V, Ink on Plastic, Single-channel HD Video, Stereo Sound, Continuous Loop, Rope Light Fixture, Led Bulbs

• Play
• YouTube

A Cycle of Us (2024)
Dryer, Trash Bags, Thread, Rebar, Ink, and Projector Installation
Dryer Base: 29in x 25in x 35in, Drum: 27in x 29in

Body 1 (2024)
Fabric(Bedsheets), Thread, Concrete, Metal Hooks, Screws
Dimensions Variable

Touch of Life (2023)
Metal, Glass, Cloth, Tulle, Thread
7 ½ in x 4 in x 32in

In Tandem (2024)
Bike, Burgundy Yarn, Steel/Rebar, Cement Slabs,
Dimensions Variable

To Rest At No Time; On No Occasion; In No Circumstance (2024)
Rebar/metal, Spandex, Thread, Concrete, Screen Print on Plastic, Ink
22 in x 27in x 40 in

In Service (2024)
Rebar, Concrete, Screen print on Linen, Ink, Safety Pins
19 in x 15 in x 32 ½ in

Ends-Meet (2024)
Mop Base, Metal, Bed Sheets, Screws
Dimensions: H:52in, L: 6 in, W: 4 in

Ends-Meet In Public (2024)
Performance, Mop Base, Bed Sheets

Formation of Relationships (2022)
Wood, Pantyhose, Yarn, Thread
81in x 32in

Walk the Line (2024), Concrete, Nylon, Heel, Rebar, Thread, 8in x 2in x 125in

Re-igniting My First Year (2024)
Screenprint on Wax, Rebar, Fire
15in x 6 in x 47in

Child Shirt (2024)
Rebar hanger, Screw, Plaster Buttons
17in x 19in

01-01-2025 (2024), Rebar, Plastic, Lentils, Jute, T.V, Ink on Plastic, Single-channel HD Video, Stereo Sound, Continuous Loop, Rope Light Fixture, and Led Bulbs

“01-01-2025” is an installation based on packaging a household tradition by my grandmother that consists of giving my family lentils to carry around as an aspiration of acquiring prosperity for the New Year. The piece consists of twenty-four welded homes, from dented and looking very disheveled, to a more sleeker and straight edge appearance of the rebar. The homes are then wrapped with plastic sheeting and heat-gunned so that the plastic will hold onto the lining of the rebar. The lentils are then filled into the interior space of the homes, acting as a charged unit synonymous to prosperity. A performance video accompanies the work as I drag around four homes into areas that I frequent in my every-day life; addressing this ritualistic aspect of grandmother’s tradition, but at the same time, the dragging motion demonstrates the imposing limits on the self-idea of success. If there is room for advancement, one will rather upscale to some extent in order to reach that goal of securing more sane of mind, or space, or value.

• YouTube

Ends-Meet (2024),Mop Base, Metal, Bed Sheets, Screws, Dimensions: H:52in, L: 6 in, W: 4 in

I looked onto my grandma’s livelihood, which has been working in cleaning houses or with companies. She experienced encounters where people made her feel undervalued for having a job that is regarded as dirty or without advancement. Though it is a constrained occupation, my grandma’s job also helped my mom and I financially and in ensuring we always had our heads safe in a bed. I took a found object and braided bed sheets into the base of the mop. Through performance, I tied myself to this mop that will always be an extension of me through my grandma’s own history with it and fell into a rhythm of mopping. I found it difficult to keep stability and my movements became slower and weaker, but I carried on as I know my grandmother has done.

Ends-Meet In Public (2024), Performance, Mop Base, Bed Sheets

For this public performance, I took the artifact I made into the same space that my grandmother has worked in for many years, which is a television network space. I documented myself mimicking my grandmother’s movements as she mops the floors. I did not give her much instruction, other than for her to work as she normally does. As the video plays out, our movements begin to sync up evenly as we go down this long corridor that eventually, I disappear slightly behind her. I am portraying this idea of a shadow of history, in which my grandmother’s silent labor of cleaning allowed for my mother’s and I to progress.

In Tandem (2024), Bike, Burgundy Yarn, Steel/Rebar, Cement Slabs, Dimensions Variable

• YouTube

“In Tandem” is an exploration of transforming a ready-made object’s original purpose. I took a bike with missing parts and used it as a spinning wheel. Instead of making yarn, I take ready-made yarn and use the bike to essentially hold my yarn. I made square cement slabs and pre-drilled holes into it for sewing on top of each other as it configures the corner already in place. There is a process of working backwards in terms of what the bike becomes and how the cement is assembled. I am questioning what and how functionality is significant by going from the original function into turning the objects’ new purpose as the natural disposition.

Body 1 (2024), Fabric(Bedsheets), Thread, Concrete, Metal Hooks, Screws, Dimensions Variable

This work focuses on the dynamic nature of fabric and concrete as they can both be molded in whichever way. I wanted to play around with the materials without having a solid plan to its’ appearance. The form that I hanged on metal hooks I made is very abstracted and intuitively accomplished. From this, the work gave off a very bodily experience, seemingly representing the uterus; interplaying with masculine and feminine materials. There is a sensitivity in which the concrete could easily crumble and break apart. Ultimately, “Body One” reminds me of a process in womanhood that is not commonly talked about, which is menopause. The dilution in colors as they become muted reminds me of the end of a woman’s period, as if her sheets will no longer stain.

A Cycle of Us (2024), Dryer, Trash Bags, Thread, Rebar, Ink, and Projector Installation, Dryer Base: 29in x 25in x 35in, Drum: 27in x 29in

“A Cycle of Us” is an installation based on bringing forth this idea of bonding with my mother through a mundane tradition that was formed since I was a young child. This chore-type of activity of doing laundry with my mother was what fortified our relationship and communication. I deconstructed a dryer to use its main simplified parts as a place holder for the video projection and screen-printed trash bags. I screen-printed textures of clothes that my mother and I have that stem from lasting impressions of strong memories we both share onto trash bags that we use to do laundry with. This piece also arises from not having a house to put our own washer and dryer in; so, in consequence, we must go to the public laundromats. In a sense, it feels vulnerable with strangers that surround as they too go through a routine and share these machines. Through the video projection, I use our reflections through the doors of the dryers at the laundromat space as an insight to our overall actions. Our process of doing laundry together became ingrained in my memory as a cherished and intimate experience. It was and still is a necessary routine in our daily lives that creates stability and threads us to understand each other as we both get older, creating a warm connection.

To Rest At No Time; On No Occasion; In No Circumstance (2024), Rebar/metal, Spandex, Thread, Concrete, Screen Print on Plastic, Ink, 22 in x 27in x 40 in

I had a conversation with my mother in which she mentioned that my grandmother is tired of working, but she cannot retire in due to decisions my grandmother has made in life. My mother and I carry a feeling of guilt for wanting to provide more. There is a sense of feeling like there is simply no rest for either of us, both mentally and physically. I made a small bed out of rebar to encase these concrete blocks. I experimented with the concrete by having fabric dip and fold onto it. I used a light pink cloth because the color symbolizes a calm to the physical state, but by having it sink with the concrete, it alludes to labor overtaking that calm. I screen-printed my grandma, mom, and I sleeping next to each other on a sheet of plastic and draped it over the bed of concrete; in reference to protecting the necessity of labor. The rusted bed of hard concrete is our guilt, providing an uncomfortable, restless space.

Walk the Line (2024), Concrete, Nylon, Heel, Rebar, Thread, 8in x 2in x 125in

I wanted to explore the use of materiality and use ways to construct cement slabs in juxtaposition to the heels that walk among them. A response to how there is a conversation between both that can be felt from the sharp pain of heels and heard by the clicking on the ground. Walk the line extends to the top, as the cement grasps on to remnants of the heel, marking an impression of wear and tear. The heels I specifically used were my mother’s from when she was in her twenties, and I can recall her sharing memories of using the heels as she did then, partaking in young camaraderie.

In Service (2024), Rebar, Concrete, Screen print on Linen, Ink, Safety Pins, 19 in x 15 in x 32 ½ in

My mother’s labor is working as a waitress at a restaurant for over ten years. She would come home stressed and tired as she would recount to me her daily stories of treatment from customers or even her own bosses. I used a cloth that resembled a texture feel to cloth napkins given in restaurants and took my mother’s work logo; the colors and overall design to change the wording to being “Servers serves to serve”. I used three connotations of the word to serve in a row because it produced a demanding type of action. I cut the fabric into squares and gave the cloth to my mother, who then cleaned with them at her workplace. What was left was the stains and overtime mold that began to overtake the material, alluding to my mother’s own torment. I safety pinned the cloth back together due to the imperfections of the gaps. I draped the tablecloth over a welded table that I designed based on capturing a coffee/ bar kind of table. I used concrete as the table’s top base to give it some heaviness and for its laborious implication.

Touch of Life (2023), Metal, Glass, Cloth, Tulle, Thread, 7 ½ in x 4 in x 32in

Re-igniting My First Year (2024), Screenprint on Wax, Rebar, Fire, 15in x 6 in x 47in

Through using analog and digital processes, I leaned on memory captured through a V.H.S. tape of my first birthday year and from my mother’s mind as well. “Re-igniting My First Year” was based on essentially burning my mother’s pain away as she remembers that time being conflicting for struggles that my dad and her faced, leading to a messy divorce shortly after. By screen printing on the wax and lighting it on fire, the work was used as a therapeutical method for letting go of hurt, as it also affected my development and relationship with parents. I placed the rebar structures stacked on top of each other so that the wax would melt downwards, giving each their own appearance. Sound from the still images of the tape was used throughout the process as it replays and clutters my memory with a sadness.

Child Shirt (2024), Rebar hanger, Screw, Plaster Buttons, 17in x 19in

Formation of Relationships (2022), Wood, Pantyhose, Yarn, Thread, 81in x 32in

One of the first sculptures I made in which I begin to experiment with the limitations of materials. I focused on themes that connect society, such as the five stages of building a relationship, which are initiation, experimentation, intensifying, integration and bonding. I created wooden panels extending from different directions and sewed pantyhose to them. Going from left to right, layers of pantyhose begin to thin out and shred to express the openness and vulnerability one shares as a relationship forms. From the video, I am divided from the person on the other side, but continually, our barrier dissipates and transforms to a delicate connection that requires patience and effort.

• Arrow Up

DRAWINGS

Enveloped in Folds (2023), Ballpoint Pen, Charcoal, Yarn, 36 in x 27 in

PRINTMAKING

Collective Solitude (2022), Etching on Copper

It Takes Two (2022), Drypoint on Plexiglass

Cavernous lll (2024) Etching on Copper,State Proofs, 8” x 10” in

Self-Emerging (2024), Silk Aquatint,14” x 11” in

Threaded to My Mother (2023), Screen Printing, Embroidery Thread, on Cotton Fabric, 36 1/2 in x 27 in

Fragile Are We (2023), Screen Printing on Paper

Rest in Bubbles (2023), Screen Printing on Paper, 15 in x 12 1/2 in

CONTACT

• Email
• Tumblr
• Instagram