Pulse Miami Brings Candy Assault Rifles, Free Tattoos and Comfy Hammocks To Wynwood

photo by Tim Elfrink

Mac Premo inside his Dumpster Project at the Pulse Art Fair.

​When Mac Premo, a D.C.-born, RISD-educated artist, was forced to move to a new, smaller studio space in Brooklyn, he came to a terrible realization: There was no way he could bring along the hundreds of objects he'd accumulated, from dusty baseball cards to antique cans to torn hats. Premo couldn't bear the thought, so instead, the objects became his biggest work yet: the Dumpster Project, a giant reddish Dumpster full of carefully cataloged items from Premo's life, all numbered and narrated on his corresponding website.

"We define ourselves by what we choose to keep," Premo says.

His work is highlight at Pulse, a wide-ranging, photo and sculpture heavy fair that opened Thursday at the Ice Palace. Just look for the dumpster parked right in the middle of the fair's emerald green, hammock-studded lawns.

Click through for more photo highlights of the Basel satellite fair.

Premo's work marries the careful planning of a Smithsonian-curated exhibit with a personal narrative that brings life to his accumulated possessions. Inside the Dumpster, each object bears a tiny orange number that corresponds to an entry on his project's web page.

Take a battered Red Sox cap, which belonged to his Uncle George who used to play catch with him in Vermont as a "baseball-obsessed 8-year-old."

"I've never made anything more relatable than this piece," Premo says. "People keep stopping by and leaving their own items with their own stories. Everyone tells their own life stories through the items they hang on to, which is why people have connected so well to this project."

photo by Tim Elfrink

A baseball section inside the Dumpster.

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photo by Tim Elfrink

The Dumpster Project

​From its base inside the Ice Palace, Pulse broadcasts one of the mellower vibes amidst the Basel madness. Hungover hipsters sip bloody marys in the red hammocks strug between leafy trees, while the Fair's well spaced exhibits encourage a more leisurely pace than the echoing Miami Beach Convention Center.