Open Call 2025: NEW ATLANTIS
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Introduction
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
Iggy Pop - New Atlantis (Official Audio)
Green Space Miami Open Call
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.
Open for proposals until June 8.
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
T. 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
Open Call Guidelines
WHO CAN APPLY: Green Space Miami's Open Call is open to professional artists living and working in Miami-Dade County. If you are temporarily based elsewhere, please provide further details in your proposal or artist biography. Awardees of previous open calls are eligible to apply again after 2 years.
SELECTION PROCESS: Green Space invites artists to submit proposals until June 8. Ten works will be selected by the Green Space Miami advisory committee through an individual, anonymous voting process managed by Submittable.
ELIGIBLE WORK: Painting, photography, other two-dimensional art processes and techniques, sculpture, installation, textile, audio and video. Proposals for work not yet created are admissable. You may submit renderings or sketches of a work that you will create along with a detailed supporting written statement that helps the committee clearly understand your proposal. Artists may submit pultiple works if they respond to the theme or are part of a series, however only as part of the same application.
AWARDS: A one-time, unrestricted award of $5,000 each will be made to 10 visual artists in recognition of artworks selected by the committee. Please note that Green Space Miami does not provide additional funding or reimburse artists for costs related to the fabrication, delivery or installation of artworks. Green Space Miami expects to announce the selected artists during the month of August. Selected artworks will be exhibited as part of a group show at Green Space Miami from mid-October 2025 to March 2026.