Celebrating 10 years of WaveMaker!
Cara Despain, sea unzine (2016) underwater listening event and zine release with EXILE Books at The Standard, Miami Beach.
For the past decade, WaveMaker Grants have supported artists working in places where art might not be expected, but is deeply needed. Think living rooms and loading docks, schoolyards, storefronts, and sidewalks. Think pop-up archives in shipping containers, or performances in public housing courtyards. These overlooked and in-between spaces are often filled with potential for community engagement and experimentation.
Initiated in 2015, WaveMaker Grants were originally developed by Cannonball, a nonprofit previously known as LegalArt supporting Miami’s artists through pro bono legal aid and professional development. From the moment of its conception following a significant grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation’s Regional Regranting Program, WaveMaker Grants filled a critical gap in Miami’s art landscape: direct, no-strings-attached funding for experimental, community-rooted projects happening in unconventional spaces. When Cannonball closed its doors in 2017, Locust Projects stepped in to ensure the program’s continuity. Cannonball’s WaveMaker program proved a natural fit for Locust: both organizations were founded by artists, for artists; both prioritized risk-taking and community engagement; both believed deeply in the importance of letting artists lead the way.
Now celebrating a decade of supporting art in unexpected places, WaveMaker Grants has successfully distributed over $699,000 to 139 artists working across disciplines on projects spanning performance and public art to internet interventions, ecological installations, butterfly vivariums, art book fairs, and more. At a time when cultural production is increasingly shaped by market forces and institutional gatekeeping, WaveMaker remains a rare beacon for Miami’s arts community: artist-centered, publicly accessible, and unapologetically experimental. WaveMaker is often the first institutional “yes” for artists testing new ideas; participating artists often go on to receive major national recognition and institutional notice, but it’s often this early support that serves as a catalyst for creating sustainable careers.
While reflecting on the program’s history, Locust Projects recognizes not only the quantity of artists that have been supported, but also the innovative and groundbreaking quality of the works created. For this story which focuses on a selection of innovative projects from the first five years of WaveMaker, we asked past grantees two questions: What did your WaveMaker Grant help you make happen, and what lasting impact did this project have on your artistic practice or community? Read on to learn more, and follow along on social media for more behind-the-scenes photos and stories from #10YearsOfWaveMaker.
WaveMaker Grantees from the past 10 years recently gathered at Locust Projects’ Splash Party at the Vagabond Hotel. Photo: World Red Eye.
2015
Felice Grodin, Residential Properties
New Work/Projects
How do we define “dwelling” in a city shaped by speculation, rapid redevelopment, and shifting notions of home? Residential Properties, curated by artist and architect Felice Grodin, tackled this question head-on through a series of site-specific interventions within the Fountainhead Residency’s Midcentury Modern home in Miami’s Morningside neighborhood.
Anchored by Grodin’s ongoing inquiry into the intersection of art, architecture, and the constructed environment, the exhibition used the domestic setting of Fountainhead as a framework for rethinking the physical, economic, and symbolic meanings of property. The project’s title playfully alludes to the duality of home and real estate: a place of personal belonging and a site of transactional speculation.
For the project, Grodin invited artists, architects, designers, filmmakers, and writers to “intervene” within the existing home, creating what she called “a positive entanglement.” Through subtle and overt alterations referred to endearingly as “garnishment,” the participating artists reconfigured rooms, architectural features, and domestic objects, each probing the boundaries between public and private space.
"At the time there was much discussion and debate within the artist's community in Miami pertaining to issues regarding residential housing, and additionally, the pressures of maintaining brick and mortar art spaces. I believe ‘Residential Properties’ contributed by raising further awareness of these issues.”
Participating artists included AdrienneRose Gionta, Barron Sherer, Bhakti Baxter, Leyden Rodriguez-Casanova and Frances Trombly, Ernesto Oroza, and George Sanchez-Calderon, among others.
Find the full list of 2015 Grantees here.
2016
Tom Virgin, Extra Virgin Press
Long-Haul Projects
A longtime educator and community collaborator, artist Tom Virgin creates work that is as generous as it is grounded. With a practice rooted in printmaking, Virgin gravitates toward mediums that are replicable and shareable, tools for spreading ideas and expanding access. His work spans public art, sculpture, book arts, and editions, but always returns to the democratic possibilities of the printed page.
In 2015, Virgin launched Extra Virgin Press, a community letterpress studio that invites writers and visual artists to collaborate on small-edition, hand-printed books and broadsides. Drawing from the traditions of teaching and community engagement, Extra Virgin Press cultivates a fun and creative space where people of all ages can learn the art of letterpress printing.
“Building a community takes time, especially historic letterpress printing. That said, many people in Miami now know letterpress. Through Book Fair, Jamm@PAMM, Tropic Bound Book Fairs, Extra Virgin Press, and IS Projects, this anachronistic process has grown and thrived for almost a decade.
“The Long Haul grant on the heels of a 2015 Knight Arts Challenge grant for Extra Virgin Press was an affirmation of the value of a letterpress printing community. Now two dedicated letterpress communities are sharing time and space at Bakehouse Art Complex, bringing the past into the future.“
Find the full list of 2016 Grantees here.
2017
Dejha Carrington, Commissioner
Research + Development
In a city where creativity is abundant but support can feel fleeting, Commissioner offered a timely proposition: what if collecting art became less about exclusivity, and more about community?
Launched in 2018 by cultural strategist Dejha Carrington and journalist-turned-technologist Rebekah Monson, Commissioner began as an experiment in shared cultural stewardship. Their idea was deceptively simple: invite people to pool resources to commission new works from Miami artists, then create moments of connection around those works. This gesture blossomed into a full slate of programmatic offerings, including studio visits, neighborhood gatherings, dinners, and conversations that put artists and audiences in direct, ongoing dialogue with each other.
Commissioner is a reimagining of the patron-artist relationship for a city still building its cultural infrastructure. The model is membership-based: each year, members receive a series of four commissioned, limited-edition works by Miami-based artists, alongside intimate, often unexpected experiences that demystify the process of collecting and deepen engagement with local talent. It’s as much about cultivating cultural literacy as it is about acquiring artwork.
Supported early on by both Locust Projects’ WaveMaker Grant and the Knight Foundation’s Knight Arts Challenge, Commissioner has become Miami’s longest-running community-powered art commissioning platform, carving out space for talented emerging and mid-career artists to be seen, supported, and celebrated through direct engagement by their own communities.
Find the full list of 2017 Grantees here.
2018
Onajide Shabaka, Alosúgbe: remembering (as far as the sun)
Research + Development
Influenced by his own family history, artist Onajide Shabaka creates delicate stories through art based on site-specific research that explores the African diaspora and Native American cultures. Through explorations into geology, anthropology, and ethnobotany, his practice aims to investigate human experiences from cultures that have been lost throughout history.
For his project Alosúgbe: remembering (as far as the sun), which premiered at Emerson Dorsch, Shabaka turned to ethnobotany (the relationship between people and plants) as a way to understand colonial migration patterns in the Caribbean and coastal Americas. The project examined how plants like rice, okra, and other staples made transatlantic journeys alongside forced human migration, embedding stories of survival and adaptation into culinary traditions. While Caribbean cuisine is often celebrated as a unified regional identity, Shabaka’s research reveals the underrecognized African contributions that shaped it.
“Alosúgbe was a multiyear investigation into maroon and formerly enslaved agricultural communities in Suriname and coastal Georgia. The WaveMaker Grant supported my residency in Suriname, where I studied rice cultivation practices that trace back to Côte d’Ivoire. Without that funding, the project wouldn’t have happened… I continue to find the natural world a space of creativity and rejuvenation. It’s where the stories live.”
Find the full list of 2018 Grantees here.
2019
Franky Cruz, Vivarium Meconium Laboratory
Long-Haul Projects
Blending art and science, artist Franky Cruz finds inspiration in the natural beauty of the world, aiming to find a balance between humanity and nature through art, creating a bridge between the two.
For his project Vivarium Meconium Laboratory, Cruz created housing where butterflies were raised and studied. Over time, the laboratory has raised and released more than 4,000 butterflies including endangered Monarchs and Atalas, while generating a body of paintings made from meconium, the fleeting, pigmented fluid released during a butterfly’s emergence from the chrysalis.
“The WaveMaker Grant supported the early stages of my ongoing project Vivarium Meconium Laboratory—an evolving series of living installations, ecological sculptures, and paintings that merge art, science, and metamorphosis… What began as a small lab has since expanded far beyond its initial form.”
Indeed, the project has grown into an ambitious, multi-institutional artwork spanning multiple locations, including the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, and the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa. The lab itself has been activated as a living sculpture in public spaces, including Dome Lab, a geodesic installation commissioned by Art in Public Places Miami Beach for the Miami Beach Botanical Garden.
Now in its most expansive phase, Vivarium Meconium Laboratory continues at the Tulsa Artist Fellowship, where Cruz has installed both Dome Lab and Greenhouse Lab. Monarchs raised in the studio are tagged and released into the garden to begin their migratory journey across North America, turning the studio into a site of citizen science and environmental stewardship.
Find the full list of 2019 Grantees here.
WaveMaker Grants are made possible by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts' Regional Regranting Program.