Artist x Artist: Germaine Barnes & Juancy Matos
Germane Barnes and Juan Luis (Juancy) Matos are storytellers working in architecture and film. Both call Miami home.
I first met Barnes on a tour of historic Overtown, where his warmth and knowledge engaged three generations of my family. I met Matos over lunch and was so absorbed in our conversation about cultural editing that I barely touched my food.
Pairing them for Body of Work felt instinctive. What I didn’t know was that they were already friends and collaborators. Their conversation was recorded over video call on Oct. 3, 2026, and edited for length and clarity.
– Florencia Franceschetti
Juancy: Yo.
Germane: What up, Chief?
Juancy: What’s happening, baby?
Germane: What part of the world you in?
Juancy: Provincetown, Massachusetts. My godfather opened one of the OG pizza spots here in the ’70s. His wife was Cuban. They met my mom in Cuba, and he brought us to the United States. This was the first place we lived. I’ve been taking photos and collecting stories. My godmother dated Basquiat when they were really young.
Germane: Oh, really?
Juancy: Yeah. And there’s this rumor — or theory — that she is SAMO. According to sources on the internet. [laughs]
Germane: How does it feel, knowing you may be related to international lore?
Juancy: Not by blood, but it’s powerful stuff.
Germane: You know the interview already started, right?
Juancy: That’s what I just realized! We’re not having an interview. We’re having a conversation. [laughs]
Germane: Have you brought any of this into the Massisi radio stuff?
Juancy: Not really. Our work in Miami is Caribbean-centered. Did Miami make you feel like you had to bring the Caribbean into your work?
Germane: Yeah. Coming from Chicago, the only thing that exists is Black, white, and Mexican. You could have no idea your best friend is Haitian. We all just Black. Here, nationality became prominent. “Nah, nah, nah. I’m Cuban.” That’s where a lot of the work started. If you in a place, you have to understand the place.
Juancy: I’m trying to separate myself from the identity part of the work.
Germane: Really?
Juancy: Sometimes it feels like the only dialogue we’re allowed is a cultural dialogue. Everything is cultural, but tying your identity to the work can be a disservice.It’s a market issue. We feed into how we’re supposed to present and make work. In Paris, I visited cafés where writers used to sit. Now they sell you the history. A tiny club sandwich is 25 euros. An espresso is 6. [laughs] The culture we create gets sold back to us.
Germane: Does using identity as the genesis of the work mean you get pigeonholed?
Juancy: I don’t know. But I see a lot of self-policing. We’re pigeonholing ourselves because we believe that’s how you get the show. “I’m a queer Latin artist, and my work is about memory, landscape, family, and belonging.” Yo, you’re tapped in. You’re on. I remember people up high saying, “Black art is over!” after the post–George Floyd moment. Obviously not. There’s a push and pull between what people allow and what people give in to.
Germane: Don’t put me in the box of a Black architect who only works in Black communities. That’s my priority because our spaces have always been neglected. I’m gonna run to those. But we can do cool projects where we ask: Is it pretty? Is it colorful? Does it serve nothing but our own aesthetic egos? Everything doesn’t have to be heavy. We can do both. There are so few Black architects compared to Black artists. That scarcity forces me into a role. If I’m known for this, can I do other things? That’s something we wrestle with at the office.
Juancy: With Massisi, we get June for Pride Month or February for Black History Month — that’s when we’re allotted time in museums or institutional spaces. You’re a tool. It does a disservice to the nuance, layering, and possibilities of any cultural identity. I don’t know if I like “pigeonholing.” It’s a flattening of what you can be.
Germane: “Flattening” makes sense. In architecture, though, the projects might be a museum, a house, a storefront — different typologies. But they’re all in the same circle: “Is your client Black? Is the neighborhood Black?” You also have to be hyper-aware. I’m the first Black person to do half this shit. Sometimes I get jealous of artists. Y’all have more freedom. We’re a service industry. If nobody needs a house, you ain’t got no job.
Juancy: You’ve been lucky to move between architecture and fine art. But in film, too, your skill and creative integrity can get reduced to a hand for hire — or a camera for hire. There’s power in how our work serves people. People live in your buildings. Cinema is accessible. But people can see you as someone for hire without recognizing your full creative capacity.
Germane: Architecture and film overlap. So much is spatial. I make my students watch “Brazil.” It’s super kitsch and apocalyptic, but it asks: How do we live in these liminal spaces? I’m trying to bring those questions into the work. Then there’s this funny divide between practical and theoretical architects. Practical architects are like, “Man, get that shit out of here.” Meanwhile, theoretical architects get all the recognition and press. Sometimes people put us in that category, but it’s like, “Yo, we actually build things.” We try to do both.
Juancy: Few architects move between those worlds as well as you — doing capital-A architecture and showing at galleries like Nina Johnson.
Germane: All accidental. I just make stuff because I wanna make stuff.
Juancy: That’s the perfect straddle. I think of Arthur Jafa or Isaac Julien, moving between cinema and fine art. That’s a special place to be, man.
Was that Miami’s doing?
Germane: No. I started in art. My first job was as a painter at 14. Not walls — actual imagery. Famous architects had started as artists. I thought, “If I wanna be one of the ones, I’m gonna follow their blueprint.” What came out of your work in Paris?
Juancy: My show at David Castillo last year. I’m re-editing the film for a potential festival run. I’d also like to develop the main film, with a Sudanese artist, into a multichannel installation. Those ideas started in Paris: storytelling and myth-making. I love that in architecture — how a space tells a story and misleads you. One of my favorite books is “The Poetics of Space.” Some real classic shit. Each room has its own symbolism. I think about that more abstractly in cinema.
Germane: What else are you working on?
Juancy: A feature Monica Sorelle and I have been writing for two years. With my shorts, I film, edit, do sound — everything. This will be an exercise in letting go. “I’m just gonna stand here and yell at people.” [laughs]
Germane: They about to test your leadership. Where’s it set?
Juancy: Miami.
Germane: The man who doesn’t want everything stuck around the Caribbean comes with a two-hour movie based in Miami!
Juancy: The Caribbean is the backdrop. It’s who we are, not what I’m selling. It’s about family relationships, how we negotiate truth. A coming-of-age film for three people at different ages.
Germane: That sounds like “Moonlight.”
Juancy: That’s the problem! One Miami movie, and now every movie is ‘Moonlight.’ [laughs]. You put Black people in Miami, and it’s “Moonlight.”
Germane: That or “Bad Boys.”
Juancy: Miami deserves that nuance. People say, “Shoot somewhere with better tax incentives.” Then it’s a different movie. You can’t just move a building.
Germane: Some people do! I ain’t gonna say names. Does it fit? Boom. Everybody’s like, “Why is this here?”
Juancy: Your buildings, our films — they become how people see a place.
Germane: Now every building looks the same. White stucco, blue-tinted windows.
Juancy: In art, too, the content is supposed to fit what they expect from us. Maybe I just hate doing what people tell me.
Germane: Cinema’s the same movie over and over. I watch those on airplanes. At the theater, I want something I’ve never seen.
Juancy: I’m okay with a bad movie if it’s original. “Avengers 10”? I don’t need that.
Germane: I’m still gonna see it. I need something on an airplane.