New Atlantis

Continuing Green Space Miami’s focus on elevating and preserving Miami’s culture, the 2025 open call invited artists to submit proposals that recognize and celebrate the communities that built this city. Communities prevailing, singing, dancing and speaking their language while development slowly paves over. A city subsiding under the weight of its own skyline, eroded by geological and economic forces, a mosaic melting into something new – a new Atlantis.

Plato’s Atlantis is an enduring myth about a thriving utopia that swiftly disappeared beneath the waves. Atlantis was in fact an allegory about a rapidly advancing society crumbling under its own hubris. A political parable for Athenians, on vigilance in upholding democratic values, an illustration of governance adrift.

How did Miami become this relevant so young? A tourist playground rapidly populated by immigrants that became a city. Now a metropolis with a reputation perpetuated by tourists, replenished by ongoing waves of migration. Misunderstood, mocked, revered, feared, Miami doesn’t go unnoticed, yet its definition remains elusive. Amongst shifting sands and rising tides, descendants of the people who built Miami are carrying on in places spared glamorization by Miami Vice and Vice City, sustaining their culture and shaping Miami’s identity.

A special thank you to punk legend and Miami resident for over two decades, Iggy Pop, who kindly gave Green Space Miami his blessing to include his ode to Miami, a song titled New Atlantis, as a prompt for the artists:

NEW ATLANTIS
Song and lyrics by Iggy Pop

Somewhere south of Alabama and north of Cuba
There lies a beautiful whore of a city
She accepts all donations and attracts an endless stream of lovers

Colombian pushers and murderers
American swindlers and Slavic thugs
Because here a man can be himself
But now, she′s sinking into the sea

New Atlantis, lying low
New Atlantis, sinking slow
New Atlantis, dumb as dirt
New Atlantis, she’s a flirt

As her doom became apparent
Her magic only accelerated
Because people are desperate
For love and beauty

You and I are designed for love
Love, there is no chance of
The Earth is ready to detonate
In a fire of imperial emptiness

New Atlantis, lying low
New Atlantis, sinking slow
New Atlantis, dumb as dirt
New Atlantis, she′s a flirt
New Atlantis, lying low