The Hope Boat
Soon We Will Embrace Again
Carlos Betancourt
1 PM - 4 PM
Saturday, May 2nd, 2020
Biscayne Bay, Miami FL
A surprise public art intervention along Miami’s Biscayne Bay in an effort to nourish and generate optimism.
Miami, FL, May 2, 2020 – Today between 1-4 PM, Bas Fisher Invitational (BFI) and Bridge Initiative and Ballyhoo Media media present The Hope Boat, an ephemeral video projection set up off the shores of Biscayne Bay, Miami Beach. The work was created by renowned artist Carlos Betancourt in collaboration with Alberto Latorre edited by Harrison Fishman.
Saturday, May 2nd, starting at 1 PM The Hope Boat, a Ballyhoo Media floating billboard, made its way up the coast of Biscayne Bay, displaying a 2-minute loop of Betancourt’s kaleidoscopic video artwork. Soon We Will Embrace Again is the message that accompanies the visuals. The surprise presentation, accompanied by a textual message in various languages (…soon we will embrace again…) was offered with the intention of buoying our collective spirits during Covid-19.
Miami resident Carlos Betancourt is lauded for his progressive use of mixed media, vibrant imagery, and memory induced work. Inspired in part by embracing his trans-cultural Caribbean and distinctive Miami roots, Mr. Betancourt re-purposes the past and presents it in a new context. His work is a nod to his own multicultural roots, exploring not only personal memory but issues of beauty and identity. Each piece appears as a syncretic eternal dance of mixing and blending, where objects are activated as if to release the memory embedded in them.
The Hope Boat (…soon we will embrace again) is part of WATERPROOF MIAMI, an initiative organized by BFI and Bridge. WATERPROOF MIAMI is a series of site-specific artists’ projects presented in unexpected public spaces developed in direct response to the urgent issues facing South Florida, planned through 2021.
ABOUT Carlos Betancourt
Carlos Betancourt (born San Juan, Puerto Rico 1966) is an American multi-disciplinary artist. His artworks generally explore issues of memory informed mostly by his own experiences as well as his relationship with nature. By means of re-examination, he recycles and reinterprets the past by delivering it in a fresh and new context. Betancourt skillfully bends the line between art, photography, and nature in large format vinyls, photographs, collages, and installations. His works are held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico in San Juan, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., PAMM, and others.
ABOUT Bridge Initiative
By bridging artists and scientists together, Bridge Initiative curates public art that draws attention to the impacts of climate change in unique and engaging ways. Bridge was founded by Kate Fleming after an inspirational trip to Antarctica in 2015 where she witnessed firsthand the effects of climate change. The expedition awakened a desire to spread the message of conservation and educate others on the real consequences of human impact.
*Additional support for this project has been generously provided by: Ballyhoo media.