Presented by SNA Displays
CODAzine is proud to highlight members of the public art community by sharing stories about leading creative professionals and the innovative work they are producing. This month, we feature Ivan Toth Depeña, an award-winning interdisciplinary artist. We asked Ivan a few questions about his creative process, inspirations, and what’s ahead. Here’s what he shared with us.
I went to a Fine Arts high school in Miami, Florida called New World School of the Arts, prior to choosing architecture as my major in undergraduate studies. Throughout my college and grad school experiences, I continued to study Visual Arts in various forms while majoring in Architecture. So if I had to pick a lane, I would say that my Fine/Visual Arts education influences my architectural projects, rather than vice versa. I always considered architecture as inhabitable sculpture.
Generally speaking, my continued interest in public art stems from the fact that these disciplines cross- pollinate on any given project. Meaning that throughout the process, I get to wear many hats and I enjoy that amalgamation of my experience and interests. My education and obsessions with architecture, space and detail come through in pretty much everything I do creatively including traditional visual art.
I’m less interested in a specific medium than in what the experience of the work evokes. The concept generally delineates the final medium or layering of media. I am interested in how the project can shift perception, activate a meditative shift, foster curiosity, and/or invite an emotional connection. Combining disciplines allows me to choose the best tool for the idea, rather than forcing the idea to fit a single tool.
Also, planned public spaces are inherently a hybrid of disciplines to begin with. This often includes master planning, urban design, architecture, landscape design, graphic design, etc… In my opinion, a public art installation has to work contextually, emotionally, visually, structurally, socially, and sometimes even functionally. For me, the most compelling work happens where those boundaries blur. A successful public art installation behaves like architecture, where light/tech becomes a material, and where the overall execution carries meaning.
Technology can add the dimensions of “time” to a project. Instead of being static, the piece can respond, evolve, and reflect what’s happening in the immediate environment. For instance, I have worked on projects that activate with natural phenomena like sunlight and wind. Using these elements to change the work’s overall feeling with weather, color mapping to a local environmental condition, and motion driven by real-world interactivity and responsiveness.
I’m also very interested in the unexplored, innovative aspects that emerging technologies afford contemporary artists. There is an excitement (and often anxiety) that coincides with conceiving and producing an experience that has not been done before with a technology and/or material that has recently been released or sometimes might not even exist yet – and needs to be developed for a particular, desired result.
Participation allows the casual viewer to become a contributor. The work becomes less of a statement that I deliver and more of a relationship that forms in real time. It introduces agency, people feel the piece responding to them, and that changes the emotional register from “observing” to “belonging.”
Participation creates memory. When a viewer’s body, movement, or presence has a direct affect on the work/composition, the experience sticks. Not only as a visual artifact, but as a moment they co-authored. For me, some of the more inspiring moments are when people engage with the work in a physical and tactile manner and also affect the work aesthetically and compositionally. I like to inject this pseudo controlled, aesthetic unpredictability into as many projects as I can. The installation becomes a collaboration.
I start by analyzing the site, researching the history and understanding the project goals (if any) before I try to propose a project. That means understanding how people have used and will use the site, what the space needs, what to avoid, what the architecture is already saying, and what the community wants this place to feel like.
I usually address concepts first. Then I look at any practical constraints as generative and sequential: materials, visibility, safety, durability, maintenance, climate. I try not to think of these aspects as limitations. In fact they are design inputs.
I try to parallel my explorations in the studio and personal work as much as possible. Processes, materiality, themes. My goal is to keep a clear artistic point of view, then work with the site, design team and sometimes stakeholders to iterate with me until the work feels inevitable and unique to that particular location.
Often breakthroughs happen during prototyping and testing. For instance, when a test behaves differently than expected. A reflection hits a surface at an unanticipated angle, a material reacts unpredictably to light, or a simple sensor test reveals a more poetic behavior than the original plan.
At their best, “mistakes” often sync with the original concept in a way that reveals more substance, because they show you what the work, material, process, inherently want to be. I try to always leave enough room for this discovery process. Leaving enough structure to execute, but enough openness to recognize an accident as an opportunity. I consider prototypes as designed to break specifically for these reasons.
There are lots of challenges when working across disciplines. One that often comes up is how to merge and balance the important aspects of each discipline while maintaining the “work of art” as the final product. Sometimes, there are moments of imbalance when working through the process of ideation.
Questions arise like: Is it too techy? Is the project losing the light art aspect to a theatrical gimmick? “That’s just a glorified screensaver”. Is the architectural or functional aspect preventing the work from being a pure sculpture?
Another challenge is long-term responsibility. Public art has to endure physically and culturally, and technology introduces another layer of change. Components age, standards shift, systems get replaced.
My studio and extended team address these aspects by designing systems that are robust and reliable. Simplicity wherever possible. Modularity builds complexity. Document and archive code, so the work can be maintained by people other than the original team. I also try to avoid novelty for novelty’s sake. Technology has to serve the concept, not become the concept.
Local climate bridges inspiration and performance criteria as it affects materials, finishes, heat, glare, corrosion, and how and when people occupy the space.
Regarding the urban fabric, this is where my architectural inclinations kick in full force. Context is very important in general. Aspects like scale, proximity, sightlines, perspectives, duration of viewing, and whether the work reads as intimate or monumental.
Culture shapes tone. A project in one city might call for subtlety and layered discovery; another might want bold readability and civic presence. I’m always looking for a language that feels specific to that place rather than portable.
As an artist, I conceive of the physical object to stand on its own first. Lately, the digital aspect is more a part of the creation process and not necessarily a mechanical part of the sculpture itself.
However, for works that require a digital component such as a display or series of light fixtures, we treat the tech as a serviceable subsystem: modular components, accessible enclosures, standard protocols when possible, and a clear maintenance manual. We also spend time making sure the sculpture works as a whole even if a digital layer is reduced over time.
For technically complex projects, we also plan for future-proofing: how a controller can be swapped, how code can be updated, how fixtures can be replaced with comparable equivalents. The goal is not to freeze technology in time, but to make evolution part of the work’s stewardship.
Light is inseparable from human perception and emotion, and in my work it immediately pulls the experience toward something spiritual, meditative, and ethereal. Light and color are central to my practice. Light is sometimes used passively as the primary aesthetic presence, and other times it becomes activated through programming, sensors, and/or data.
Natural light introduces time and change: through shadow, refraction, and shifting conditions, the work continually transforms with weather and seasons, so orientation and celestial alignments are always part of how I situate a piece on a site. Artificial light offers precision and composition. It engages movement, color blending, and night presence – extending the work after dark and shaping mood, whether quietly or theatrically.
Ultimately, I’m interested in light as both sensation and signal: a way to create atmosphere and to carry information, memory, and environmental presence. I enjoy light making the invisible, like wind and time, feel tangible.
As a Hispanic, growing up in Miami in an underprivileged neighborhood, I learned to be resourceful and intentional, surrounded by multi-cultural layering. Language, history, adversity, and aesthetics colliding in the same space. That sensibility still guides me. I’m drawn to work that lives between categories rather than inside one.
It also shaped my commitment to the public realm. My early experience as a graffiti artist evolved into a belief that public art is one of the few spaces where anyone, regardless of background or means, can share the same experience without permission, admission, or specialized knowledge.
I would love to work on something in the ocean. Especially something intended to be experienced underwater.
Build a strong foundation in fundamentals and traditional media: composition, drawing, perspective, material behavior, and how people experience space. With that base, digital tools become a powerful extension of your existing skill set rather than a shortcut.
Seek collaboration early. Intern with a public artist, or work in a design/architecture studio that produces public work. Public projects are team-driven, and your ability to communicate across trades and disciplines will help push your ideas further.
Finally, treat your CV and portfolio as core studio tools. Strong visualization can carry unbuilt work, and many commissioning agencies offer mentorships or pathways for emerging artists. Take advantage of them. Keep making and documenting personal projects, temporary or permanent, to steadily expand your portfolio with professionally presented work.
A sense of heightened attention and perception. A feeling like the world got a little sharper and unusual for a moment. I want the work to create wonder, but also a quieter kind of connection to place, to atmosphere, to time, and to the people sharing the space.
Ideally, they leave with a memory that triggers reactions in the body and the mind, not just visual. Something they felt, not just something they saw.
From my artist’s statement:
“I enjoy when responses (to the work) are anything from a child’s curious gaze/interaction, a sophisticated aesthetic appreciation, or a deeper dive into the concept driven, spiritual, and intellectual underpinnings.”
A large scale earth work. A landmark-scale project where the sculpture is integrated with nature and landscape. I have always been inspired by nature, land, cosmology and the environment in general. Having a large scale land art work that integrates the above would be a dream come true. Like indigenous earth works. Also, Smithson, Nancy Holt, Walter De Maria, Serrra, James Turrell, Michael Heizer, etc… are all life time inspirations for me.
Another amazing opportunity would be to work on a film, music or theatrical production. Some sort of comprehensive, sculptural, multimedia set or stage design.