Bas Fisher Invitational presents : NIGHTMARE AMERICANA, a WEIRD MIAMI bus tour by TVGOV (Sofia Bastidas, Nicole Doran, Peter Fend, Guillermo Gomez, Agustina Woodgate).

Sunday, November 22nd, 1 pm

Tickets are $35 each in advance with only 34 tickets available

The story of the American Dream Miami Mall is the story of how a handful of visionaries (Triple Five Group) took an ordinary idea like a shopping center and turned it into a world-class destination. The mall’s stores, attractions and services combine to form the most comprehensive retail, hospitality and entertainment complex on Earth. As the prototype for mixed-use entertainment facilities, American Dream Miami is a place where people come to shop, play, and stay. Its concept is inspired by the traditional urban bazaars of Persia, where shopping and entertainment were plentiful and operated in tandem, fulfilling a variety of consumer needs all in one place.

At 5.3 million square feet, the Mall is the size of a small city and is accredited as a zoo. American Dream Miami will be the home to more than 800 stores and services including nine world-class attractions, two hotels, over 100 dining venues, the widest variety of one-of-a-kind retailers, and entertainment for all ages. Average yearly visitation is approximately 30.8 million, making Miami Dream Mall the province’s number-one tourist attraction.

TVGOV will host Nightmare Americana, a comprehensive bus tour surveying the retail real estate industry across Miami-Dade County. From proposed malls in Downtown Miami to decaying commercial spaces in Westchester, TVGOV will frame the mall as the ultimate symbol of Anthropocene and a vision of the American Dream.

WEIRD MIAMI BUS TOURS

BFI offers behind the scenes look at the city and its artistic offerings with the popular, artist-led WEIRD MIAMI bus tours, which introduce locals, as well as tourists, to lesser-known places and cultural projects. BFI invites artists to create tours and exhibitions that reflect their relationship with the city.

The title WEIRD MIAMI is a loving ode influenced by the city slogan of Austin, Texas: “Keep Austin Weird.” In 2010, frustrated by global perceptions of Miami as a superficial Babylon where Art Basel happens to be in December, Jim Drain, Naomi Fisher, and Agatha Wara sought to expose the deep and varied year-round cultural depth of Miami by having artists become the hosts of bus tours around the city. Interrelated gallery programming will link contemporary art with the community.

“Artists think differently,” says Naomi Fisher, “WEIRD MIAMI participants not only get to see and learn about sites in Miami they may have never visited before, but they also get to see the city through artist’s eyes.” With WEIRD MIAMI, participants gain a new kind of agency with their own city: one may peek into emerging artist’s studios, walk up an ancient Calusa shell mound in El Portal, or nibble on Caribbean cuisine in Little Haiti. Destinations will be kept secret, only the artist leading the tour and their chosen theme will be revealed ahead of time, transforming participants into fresh visitors to their own city and enabling tour goers to revel in Miami’s diversity, multiculturalism, and well… weirdness.