On a cheerful morning during the crunch time before Art Basel Miami Beach, Samuel Borkson and Arturo “Tury” Sandoval — founders of the resolutely perky artist team FriendsWithYou — are in their Design District offices/studio/store/playground, putting the finishing touches on their upcoming Rainbow City installation. This mega-project — their most ambitious to date and a continuation of one they did for the Luminato Festival of Arts and Creativity in Toronto’s Queen’s Park — is in essence a free-floating carnival. Think 40-foot-tall inflatable “magical mushrooms,” surreal bounce houses that hold countless merrymakers, towering hot dog-shaped balloons with candy-cane stripes and performers strolling around in inflatable costume. The whole experience, according to the FWY manifesto, is meant to “capture the moment of an exploding star.”

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