Bakehouse in NYC: Sharing Our Vision, Celebrating Leo Castañeda, and Exploring Art Spaces
Earlier this month, Bakehouse traveled to New York City for a series of gatherings, visits, and conversations that both celebrated our artists and advanced our vision for the future campus.
The trip centered around a special evening hosted by artist and Bakehouse champion Michele Oka Doner and her husband Fred at their SoHo studio, where we introduced Bakehouse and its future plans to a dynamic cross-section of New York’s cultural ecosystem. The gathering brought together architects, designers, curators, museum leaders, nonprofit and civic thinkers, members of the press, and artists—both New York–based and from our own Bakehouse community. It was an opportunity not only to share the scope and ambition of our future campus, but to engage in meaningful dialogue with those shaping culture across disciplines. Bakehouse architect Michael Maltzan shared comments on what is driving the goals and ambitions of our future 3-acre campus, while Cathy Leff spoke more about how the organization is seizing the moment to address affordability, as artists all over the country are facing the challenges of finding living and work spaces. Jacobo Herdoiza and Joseph Schwarzkopf, of Uribe Schwarzkopf, and Rutger Huiberts, of MVRDV, also attended to lend their support as they are working on an exciting new project in Wynwood Norte, which will be sympathetic and synergistic to Bakehouse’s plans and program.
The evening also served as a celebration of Bakehouse artist Leo Castañeda and his inclusion in the Whitney Biennial 2026—a moment of pride that resonated deeply with everyone in the room and underscored the caliber of work emanating from Bakehouse’s studios.
Beyond the gathering, the NY trip functioned as an active study tour for our team, several Board members, and artists: an opportunity to learn about and immerse ourselves in New York’s relevant cultural infrastructure and to exchange ideas with peer institutions and practitioners. We visited Powerhouse Arts, a factory for fabrication, with Director Eric Shiner, touring its magnificent spaces, tools, and offerings for artists; we toured Pioneer Works with its founder Dustin Yellin, visited his studio and saw recent works, and spent time with artist Gabriela Ruiz, who is currently in residence at Pioneer Works and also featured in the Biennial.
The group then went off to the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, where we had a studio visit with artist Michael Mandiberg, a conceptual and multidisciplinary artist working at the intersection of digital culture, date, authorship, and systems of distribution. We saw recent projects, some of which Michael worked on while spending time over the past several years as a Bakehouse visiting artist. From there, we stopped in to the opening of an exhibition of works by designer-artist Stefan Sagmeister, and ended the evening with Korean BBQ and karaoke. The following day we sampled a few exhibitions: Wifredo Lam at MoMA and the Cooper Hewitt’s Art of Noise exhibition.
We are so deeply grateful to Michele and Fred, Eric, Dustin, and MIchael for welcoming us so generously throughout the trip. Together, these moments of exchange, reflection, and connection help sharpen our thinking, expand our network, and strengthen the growing community we are trying to build around and through Bakehouse.
Most importantly, the trip reaffirmed what we already know: that the work of our artists—and the model we are building at Bakehouse—resonates far beyond Miami, contributing to a broader conversation about how artists live, work, and shape the cities and spaces around them.