With over 1,600 members worldwide, including founding artists Nate Boyce, and Lorna Mills, the DAO has collective goals of uplifting artists, creating community and building modes of collaboration. Refraction DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) looks at the festival model as both an opportunity for tangible experiences, but also as a system that needs reinvention. And if you’re going to take a construct and blow it up, the best way to do it is with the help of 1,600 people.
Festivals are a model for collective experiences: encompassing artists, staff, partners, volunteers, and audiences. By focusing on community participation and ownership, Refraction is taking the traditional festival model and flipping it into a platform for expression and progress — and for their debut at Miami Design Week, they did just that. Contemporary artists, cutting-edge musicians and on-chain creatives gathered at the Future of Cities Climate + Innovation Hub to experience the pillars of the DAO IRL with musical acts including Yaeji, Jimmy Edgar, Sel.6, Space Afrika, Debit, Marie Davidson, Doss, INVT.
Over 60 visual artists, including Alex Gibson, Andy Rolfes, Elna Frederick, Laya Mathikshara, Mark Dorf, Raphaël Moreira Goncalves, and Suren Seneviratne + hypereikon created site-specific works that were minted live throughout the festival. Central to the dynamic works was curator Dina Chang. Diana Chang prioritized Refraction’s core value for the season–Creatives First”–with the help of Refraction co-founder Malcolm Levy, and selected artists that embody Refraction’s mission to promote diversity and support underserved communities. “I believe in artists, and I believe in art,” said Chang. “The best thing a person in my position can do is champion the voices and talents of others. In short, I’m always a fan, of those I meet and of those I know.”