Cultural Events from
The Betsy Writers Room
Public Art Installation: Portal to Niña
Portal to Niña by LIZN’BOW will emerge on Betsy Orb after sunset. Presented with the City of Miami Beach No Vacancy Program, Miami Beach Visitor Convention Authority, PG Family Foundation, Betsy Community Fund at The Miami Foundation, and Jorge Perez Family Foundation CreARTE program
Free, no tickets necessary, on view nightly, after sundown.
Share your images on Instagram by tagging #theBetsyOrb
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Liz Ferrer and Bow Ty’s work spans various mediums including digital art, tech, sculpture, music, video, and performance art. Through a queer and comedic lens, their work together has been building a reputation for critiquing American and Latin pop. Their most recent projects together are femme reggaeton band Niña and new media collaborative LIZN’BOW.
Niña is a feminist reggaeton duo featuring Liz and Bow, they started this body of work to bring diverse voices to the traditionally male genre of reggaeton. LIZN’BOW is a new media body of work in which they use media technology, digital tools, and community building exercises as vehicles to visualize, play, and explore different social and creative possibilities.
Liz’s and Bow’s work has been featured at MOCA North Miami, Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, The Bass Museum, Young at Art Museum, David Castillo Gallery, Mana Contemporary, Squeaky Wheel, Borscht Film Festival, Eternal Family TV, The Miami Herald, iii Points Festival, Wassaic Projects, Cunsthaus, The Koubek Center, Davey Fest, Museum of Modern Art Santo Domingo, Index Performance Art Festival Santo Domingo and Miami, Albright Knox Center Buffalo, Burchfield Penney Art Center, and The Art Institute of Chicago.
Liz and Bow are recipients of a Creative Capital Wild Futures Award, NEFA Development & Touring Grant, Knights Art Challenge from the Knight Foundation, Franklin Furnace Award, PAM CUT Labs Fellowship, Locust Projects WaveMaker, Oolite Arts Ellies Award 2019 and 2022, LMCC Creative Engagement, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Sundance Short Film Miami Intensive Fellow, City Arts Corps Grant New York, and a Borscht Film Festival Commission.
Liz and Bow have been awarded residencies and fellowships at Macdowell, Headlands, and Ucross for 2024. They have attended Collar Works Elizabeth Murray Residency, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Knight Sundance Short Film Miami Intensive, Caldera Arts Residency, Squeaky Wheel, Mana Contemporary Studio Residency, En Residencia, Tempus Projects, ACRE, La Sierra de Santa Marta Residency in Colombia, and former Miami nonprofit, Cannonball.
Artist Talk: Anastasia Samoylova
Anastasia Samoylova’s Atlantic Coast (Aperture, 2025) retraces Berenice Abbott’s 1954 photographic journey along the Eastern Seaboard, documenting dislocation, loss, and a shifting American dream. Samoylova's work will be exhibited and discussed.
About the Artist
Anastasia Samoylova is an American artist (b. 1984, Russia) who alternates between observational photography and studio practice. After relocating to Miami in 2016, Samoylova began developing an immersive, observational approach to photography. This led to her first monograph, FloodZone, a study of how environmental vulnerability is visualized in flood-prone communities. Her Floridas project continued this inquiry with a kaleidoscopic, often contradictory portrait of the state’s layered cultural and political identity. In Image Cities (2023), she turned outward to global metropolises, exploring the impact of media saturation on the urban landscape.
Her recent solo exhibition Floridas: Anastasia Samoylova and Walker Evans was on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, from October 14, 2024, to May 11, 2025.
Artist Talk: Dr. Deborah Willis
Dr. Deborah Willis’ Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers: 1840 to the Present (Liveright, 2025) is an acclaimed collection of Black photography, redefining our understanding of American history. Dr. Willis will be in conversation with Cornelius Tulloch and Joan Morgan.
About the Artist
Dr. Deborah Willis is a prominent American artist, curator, and scholar, currently a University Professor and Chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging at New York University (NYU). Her work focuses on African American photography, visual culture, and the history of Black people in America, with extensive publications and exhibitions on these subjects. Willis is also the director of NYU's Center for Black Visual Culture and has received numerous honors, including a MacArthur Fellowship.