Soon We Will Embrace Again, Carlos Betancourt
May 2020
The Hope Boat
A surprise public art intervention along Miami’s Biscayne Bay in an effort to nourish and generate optimism.
BFI and Bridge Initiative proudly present The Hope Boat, an ephemeral video projection set up off the shores of Biscayne Bay, Miami Beach with the support of Ballyhoo Media. The work was created by renowned artist Carlos Betancourt in collaboration with Alberto Latorre edited by Harrison Fishman.
On Saturday, May 2nd, 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, translated into Spanish and Haitian creole. The surprise presentation was offered with the intention of buoying our collective spirits during Covid-19, to a waterfront audience of people largely sheltered in place in highrises. Bayfront audiences experienced the work from balconies and windows across the city, as we did not provide a central gathering spot to experience the work, or encourage people to gather in groups to see it.
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.
