Tucson, Arizona. January 11,2021— The University of Arizona Poetry Center, part of the College of Humanities, is excited to announce The Tucson Dream-History Tour with co-sponsors MOCA Tucson and the Downtown Tucson Partnership. Over a series of three free guided walks, poet Mathias Svalina will relate city histories that never happened on January 20 (departing from the Poetry Center), 21 (departing from MOCA), and 23 (Departing from the Presidio Historical Marker), 2022. Each tour will begin at 5:00 PM and last about one hour. Please bring your mask!
In the tradition of the 1970s Fluxus tours of Manhattan's Lower East Side, street-artists' reinventions of public spaces, & factually dubious urban tours throughout the world, The Tucson Dream-History Tour guides participants into the city to discover new wonders a city embodies.
With poetry-driven stories about various locations in three 1-2 mile walks, the Dream-History Tour mixes bits of recorded city history, joyfully erroneous interpretation, & a dream's sense of profound nonsense, building new fables out of the building blocks of the city, unearthing the surrealism embedded in Tucson's real.
The Tucson Dream-History Tour’s guide, Mathias Svalina, is a writer & artist. Since 2016, his primary project is the Dream Delivery Service, a nomadic literary arts project that delivers daily dreams to subscribers. With the Dream Delivery Service he moves from city to city, delivering dreams in the mornings, & traveling as much as he can across the country by bicycle. He has worked with or had events with the Poetry Foundation, Austin Modern, Just Buffalo Literary Center, & other arts organizations, & in 2020, The Dream Delivery Service developed a dream-audiotour of the city of Denver with the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art.
Svalina is the author of seven books of mostly poetry, most recently The Depression (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2020), a collaboration with the photographer Jon Pack of photographs & fables that explore life with chronic depression, & America at Play (Trident Press, 2020), a collection of instructions for absurdist children’s games.
Visit poetry.arizona.edu/calendar for more information about how to participate in the tours.
The University of Arizona Poetry Center, part of the UArizona College of Humanities, is housed in one of three landmark buildings for poetry in the nation. In addition to its world-renowned collection of contemporary poetry, the Poetry Center is known for its long running readings and lecture series, international symposia, classes and workshops, writers’ residencies, and a wide range of programs for children and youth. For more information, please visit poetry.arizona.edu or call (520) 626-3765.
MOCA Tucson inspires new ways of thinking through the cultivation, exhibition, and interpretation of contemporary art. Established by artists in 1997, MOCA is Tucson’s only museum devoted to local and global contemporary art. Housed in a repurposed firehouse, MOCA cultivates critical dialogue between artists and audiences about today’s world; supports artists through the production and presentation of new, experimental work; and educates the artists and audiences of tomorrow. MOCA is open Thursdays- Saturdays 11am-6pm & Sundays 11am-4pm.
The Downtown Tucson Partnership, or DTP, is a nonprofit, 501 (c)(6) corporation created in 1998 to implement enhanced municipal services for the downtown Business Improvement District (BID). As the primary advocate for Downtown Tucson, their top priority is to provide core services including economic development, clean and safe initiatives, marketing, programs and relationship building.