OPEN CALL: NEW ATLANTIS
Continuing Green Space Miami’s focus on elevating and preserving Miami’s culture, we invite Miami 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 of a thriving utopia that slowly drowned, sunk by cyclical flooding over thousands of years. Atlantis was in fact an allegory about a rapidly advancing society crumbling under its own hubris. A cautionary tale on the importance of vigilance in upholding democratic values.
How did Miami become this relevant so young? A tourist town inhabited by immigrants that became a city. Now a city with a reputation perpetuated by tourists, colonized by ongoing waves of migration. Misunderstood, mocked, revered, feared, Miami doesn’t go unnoticed. But its definition remains elusive. Amongst shifting sands and rising tides, descendants of the people who made Miami are carrying on in places spared glamorization by Miami Vice and Vice City, sustaining their culture and shaping Miami’s identity.
The 2025 open call welcomes proposals that highlight and preserve what Miami feels like today. Visual artworks that tell stories of neighborhoods, celebrate resident histories, enshrining the music, food, and fashion, from folklore to contemporary rituals and lifestyles.
Godfather of punk and Miami resident for over two decades, Iggy Pop has kindly given Green Space Miami his blessing to include his ode to Miami as a prompt to 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 (lying low)
New Atlantis, sinking slow (sinking slow)
New Atlantis, dumb as dirt (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 (lying low)
New Atlantis, sinking slow (sinking slow)
New Atlantis, dumb as dirt (dumb as dirt)
New Atlantis, she′s a flirt
New Atlantis, lying low (lying low)
New Atlantis, sinking slow (sinking slow)
Some say the world will end in fire
Some say ice
Me, I just see fewer birds, fish, butterflies
Plenty of concrete though
I run to Europe, I run to the Caribbean
But coming here is the best thing I ever did
Miami, I love you
Every year Green Space Miami produces a group show of 10 Miami artists. Selected artists are awarded a grant of $5,000, and their works are brought together in a show accompanied by a program of talks, performances and activations.
Artists are selected by a committee comprised of Miami’s curators, museum directors, artists, educators and cultural producers (list below). The selection process is conducted anonymously and individually resulting in 10 awardees whose work will be exhibited in a group show from October 2025 – March 2026 with artists hosting events throughout the run of show.
Advisory Committee 2025
Chana Budgazad Sheldon
Director, Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) North Miami
Donnamarie Baptiste
Curator and Cultural strategist
Amy Galpin
Executive Director and Chief Curator, Museum of Art and Design Miami Dade College
Jodi Mailander Farrell
VP of Development, The Everglades Foundation
Eliott Mansa
Artist
Jairo Ontiveros
VP and Dorothea Green Chair of Education and Community Engagement
Adrienne Arsht Center
Franklin Sirmans
Director, PAMM – Pérez Art Museum Miami
Mikhaile Solomon,
Director, PRIZM Art Fair
DePaul Vera
Artist
Marie Vickles
Director of Education, PAMM, Curator-in-Residence, Little Haiti Cultural Center
Pedro Jermaine
Artist
Kimberly Green
President, Green Family Foundation; Founder, Green Space Miami
Michelangelo Bendandi
Green Space Miami Co-Founder
