Commissioner, 7410 NW Miami Court, Miami, FL (2026)

06/20/2026

“A big part of the process for me is about being present.”

A couple weeks ago, we stepped into the studio of Stephen Arboite (Stephen J. Arboite), the fourth and final commissioned artist of Season Eight. In his generosity, he offered a rare glimpse into the rituals and discipline that nurture his profound relationship with presence.

Every cut and tear in Arboite’s practice serves as a portal—an entry into an underlayer, and, by extension, a new pathway. His exploration of pigments, fire, and coffee invites us to reflect more deeply on each element’s properties and their embedded narratives, as well as to consider our own relationships with materiality and meaning-making.

As we approach the crest of the season, and take in all that is ahead, today we’re celebrating artists and our shared community as the memory keepers, stakeholders, and storytellers of our time and place. The practice is to be present.

Members: See you at the finale! ✨

06/18/2026

In a season defined by world-building and transformation—engaging artists for whom shape-shifting, alchemy, and materiality are core to their process—it’s only fitting that Stephen Arboite is our finale artist.❤️‍🔥

Arboite transforms the surfaces of his works into layered textures, in which fragments of imagery move between what is visible and obscured. Through material experimentation, he examines how memory, spirituality, and identity reveal personal and collective histories embedded in the present.

❤️‍🔥 Season Eight and Nine Members: Can’t wait to share in the surprise of Saturday’s unveiling. There’s so much to celebrate, so many thanks to be given.

Starting now, much love to N'Namdi Contemporary Miami Barbancourt Rum for the support, and to our dedicated team for all the care in bringing this project to life. This thoughtful video portrait was made by Alexa Caravia (Alexa Caravia).🌹

06/17/2026

Today, it brings us incredible joy to announce the national expansion of our community-led program, supported by a $1 million investment from Knight Foundation.

Founded on models of mutual care and collective support, we’re thrilled to launch new programs that bring people together to support artists and collect art in Miami, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Charlotte, N.C.

Since 2018, more than 800 people have poured into Commissioner, making our Miami-based program the city’s longest-running crowdfunding art project. Grounded in the support of the many locals who are passionate about art and building community, members’ contributions ranging from $90 to $2,400 have surpassed $500,000, collectively funding 55 artist commissions over the past eight years.

Year after year, hundreds of us have pooled resources in ways that align with our values and capacities to support artistic practices and the production of new work. This affirmation and trust has paved the way for envisioning cultural infrastructure, systems of care, and collaborative funding models that stand to shape our shared future.

As we prepare for a new chapter with commissioned artist Stephen Arboite, we are excited to continue building on this foundation with a $1M investment from Knight Foundation to expand our work in Miami, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Charlotte.

“Commissioner shows how communities can support artists, strengthen their financial durability, and open new pathways for people to become collectors and stewards of creative work,” Kristina Newman-Scott, vice president for arts at Knight Foundation. “That cultural infrastructure makes cities more creative, resilient, and vibrant.”

More than ever, we are so very clear in our belief that the future of artist support is collaborative and community-led. 🫂

✍🏾 Read the full announcement in our bio. And thank you, deeply, for vision dreaming with us.

06/14/2026

With her exhibition “chicle y polvo,” artist Alejandra Moros described how the opportunity to show at Tunnel Projects actively encouraged her to create outside of the hyperrealistic paintings for which she is well known—to make new work that she had been wanting for a long time.

For Moros, whose pieces often draw us inward with seductive precision, experimentation is not new. It recalls a conversation from nearly four years ago, when we talked about her venturing into deeper-than-ever inquiries around bodily architecture, ephemerality, and modification through non-human subjects.

There are so many lessons to be learned in the intimacy, scale, and transformative moments of this practice. Thank you, dear alejandra moros. 🩶

Images courtesy of the artist:
“cordillera ii” + “caminata gemela”
plaster, pencil on paper, her dog’s tooth

06/09/2026

The Life and Death of Bluegill Prime, a durational play by commissioned artist David Correa, has invited us to reconsider our relationship with production, ownership, labor, and refusal.

In this tender video portrait of Correa by .info, we see how the performance asked us to do more than witness refusal, but to witness one another.

Sincere thank you to the cast of The Life and Death of Bluegill Prime:
Carlos de la Nuez
Abhinav Chatterjee
Filio Galvez
Lucas Snook
Sezenio Calvo

And, overwhelming appreciation for our community partners QUEUE Gallery and Tunnel Projects, and to New World School of the Arts, Mitchell Wolfson Sr Foundation, and YoungArts, for generously supporting the making of this project.

Learn more about the artist’s practice and The Life and Death of Bluegill Prime in the thoughtful essay by Lance Minto-Strouse linked in our bio. 🔗

Grateful for these beautiful humans.

06/04/2026

What if “vagabonding” were a strategy—a fluid approach to engineering escape routes from dominant systems?💃🏿

On May 21, , in community with and , hosted Searching for Collective Memory—an embodied program inspired by Sir Issac Julien’s two-channel installation, Vagabondia (2000), during Third Thursdays at .

With ’s Vagabondia as a guide, we brought urgent questions about stewardship, memory, and erasure to life through guided tours, performance interventions, and conversation.

Nina Osoria Ahmadi, Cecilia Benitez, Darryl Brown, Gabri Christa (mentor), Lisa Kusanagi, Arsimmer McCoy, Nicole Pedraza, and Hattie Mae Williams—all performing artists-in-residence with Pioneer Winter Collective’s 2026 Grass Stains program—responded to public artworks surrounding the Miami Beach museum. Unwittingly flirting with the idea of “vagabond” in their very presence as movement artists, they freely intervened and interrupted guided tours led by practitioners (and conspirators) Lauren Baccus, Lauryn Lawrence, and Veronica Pesantes.

In the panel that followed, photographer and scholar Vanessa Charlot, filmmaker Jason Fitzroy Jeffers, writer Lise Ragbir, and moderator Corey Davis of Maven Leadership Collective interrogated the role of institutions in shaping our historical records.

As the conversation unfolded, we found shared language with the protagonists in Julien’s film and, by extension, the site-specific performances with Grass Stains artists and guides. Moving beyond the margins and in a world of one’s own, there is spaciousness for self-determination, self-actualization, and rest.

🫂 Searching for Collective Memory was made possible through Art Bridges Foundation Access for All Program with The Bass, and with community love from ’s Black Miami Weekend. Grateful for thought-partner Maven Leadership Collective, an ideas lab that cultivates ecosystems of support for q***r and trans innovators and creatives of color and allies.

06/04/2026

“All the materials I use yield a certain weight, a certain power, a certain energy. I think it is deeper than what is on the surface. I am interested in those nuances. Why do we have the inclination to use certain materials over others?”
— Stephen Arboite

As we near the finale of an auspicious Season Eight, we’ve come to understand world-building as physical and material transformation. In this way, the past year has engaged artists for whom shape-shifting is core to their process—whether through chemistry, composition, or practice.

Commissioned artists Lauren Shapiro (), , and David Correa () are alchemists, actively altering the state of matter in the kiln, through natural dye, and performance to create a new body of work.

Now, we can’t wait to see what Arboite () has in mind for this very special community collaboration!

🌚 Members: RSVP for Arboite’s Finale Reveal on June 20 at .

🌝 Images from In the Embrace of Memory, a solo exhibition that took place in 2024 during Miami Art Week at .

05/30/2026

Yesterday the skies cleared to welcome Michele Oka Doner’s shimmering Bird House, a new public art sculpture, at the lush Bayfront Park in Miami Beach.

Here, we were reminded of our visit with the Season Five commissioned artist, who, earlier in the month, so generously opened her storied home studio to our community in New York. She shared a story:

“A bird gets up every morning and sings its song. It does not wait to hear what other birds are singing, nor does it look to see if another bird is getting more notice. It knows its song innately and sings. This is nature: knowing your own song.”

🫂 Deepest gratitude to Michele and Fred, and to all who traveled near and far to join us. This year’s New York program was presented in collaboration with . Photography by the remarkable Christina Holmes ().

Free and open to everyone, Bird House was stewarded by the Art in Public Places committee of Miami Beach. Shoutout to Oscar Rieveling, Danielle Bender and so many others who together brought this work to life.

05/29/2026

A few years ago, we took our first ever member trip to Detroit. A city we’ve since returned to many times, indelible in our memory is the studio visit with Wade Tullier, and the vault at his alma mater .

A lot has since changed, but fundamentals are still fundamental. Now, in Tullier’s latest solo at , the artist monumentalizes the building blocks of life with the exhibition aptly titled “Sky, Sea, Fruit, Hand, and Seed.”

🍎 Members: TOMORROW Saturday, May 30, is the last day for free pickups of commissioned works at . See the show and receive the latest addition to your collection! Primary is open from 12–4 PM, before closing for a much deserved summer break.

🎥

05/26/2026

Stephen Arboite is the fourth and final commissioned artist of Season Eight. 🧨

As we close out a season of world-building and transformation, who better to celebrate than an artist for whom alchemy and materiality are core to their practice?

transforms the surfaces of his works into layered textures, in which fragments of imagery move between what is visible and obscured. Through material experimentation, he examines how memory, spirituality, and identity reveal personal and collective histories embedded in the present.

Commissioner first began our journey with Arboite four years ago, traveling from Miami to Detroit to celebrate his exhibition opening in 2022 at with —shout out to Jumaane and Lauren N’Namdi, who have been instrumental in helping us anchor and develop in both cities.

In ways we’re excited to announce (soon!), this project is both a reflection of how far we’ve come and a nod to the future we build together.

❤️‍🔥 Members—RSVP for the reveal on June 20 at everyone’s favorite .

If you’re interested in becoming a member, sign up to the waitlist (link in bio) today for a heads-up on when enrollment opens. We’re less than a couple weeks away and spots move quickly!

🎥 Alexa Caravia () and cover photo by .rgb

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