Variety Act Miami #15: Meet Dejha Carrington, VP of Strategic Communications for YoungArts and Co-Founder of Commissioner.
Architect of stronger arts ecosystems.
It’s Friday, and you’re live and presente, reading the 15th issue of Variety Act Miami. I’m your compère, Natalie Guevara. Thanks for being here!
I can say with unflinching honesty that the arts have sustained me this past year and a half, offering me vigor, community, and a space to daydream. If there’s anyone in Miami who is intimately familiar with the dynamism of the arts and their saving-grace properties—especially for our collective imagination and well-being—it’s Dejha Carrington, a magnetic arts administrator, communications strategist, and nonprofit veteran who has built a career on architecting new systems for advancing the work of young artists and creatives.
Born and raised Montreal, and a denizen of Miami Beach for more than 15 years, she is reimagining the Miami arts landscape and demonstrating how essential it is for regular, everyday people like me to participate in it. In Dejha’s world and work, support and patronage of the arts is an active practice.
Day in, day out, on the clock and off, Dejha widens the aperture of who we see, read, listen to, and support. She is the VP of Strategic Communications for YoungArts, the Miami-headquartered national organization that supports accomplished young artists across all stages of their creative and professional development and through their careers. Adept at crafting multidimensional storytelling that incorporates inventive branding and content creation, Dejha is responsible for bringing to life YoungArts’s mission and elevating the voices, talents, and work of the artists who the organization empowers through its many programs.
Separate from her role at YoungArts, Dejha is the co-founder of Commissioner, a community-led arts membership and patronage program that connects emerging collectors with local contemporary artists, encouraging arts lovers to support local and embed themselves in the very fabric of the Miami arts ecosystem. Every season, Commissioner brings 40 Collector-level members to the fold, who go on to receive new limited-edition artwork every quarter. Ranging from photography, collage, and sculpture to performance and social practice, these works are commissioned exclusively for the program. Members also take part in exclusive programming and curated events featuring meet-up opportunities with artists, experts, and fellow arts lovers and collectors. Commissioner recently announced its fourth season, and darlings, I just might use the upcoming holidays as an excuse to gift a membership to myself.
Arts patronage and collecting are often inaccessible and exclusionary practices, and Dejha inspires me to interrogate outdated models that don’t bring us into community and collaboration with artists and fellow arts lovers. I knew I had to get her observations on living in Miami, connecting with artists, and, of course, her Magic City favorites.
Here we go!
MEET DEJHA CARRINGTON, VP OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS FOR YOUNGARTS AND CO-FOUNDER OF COMMISSIONER.
On when she first felt a gravitational pull towards communications and arts advocacy:
It was in grade 8 when I started promoting events with my high school student council; I haven’t looked back since. At the heart of my life’s work is a passion for art, people and community.
On the piece of art that reminds her of moving to Miami from her hometown of Montreal:
My first year in Miami is a bit of a blur. I remember not having any family or friends here, and struggling to find my people and community. I think this is why the photographs that I brought with me—and the photo frames that I collected at the time—were and still are my prize possessions.
I remember hanging about 20 framed photographs “salon style” in my studio apartment on James Avenue, and printing a vinyl of a favorite quote—I was reading a lot of Beat Poets stuff at the time—by Jack Kerouac, a fellow wanderer with French-Canadian roots: “Happiness consists in realizing it is all a great strange dream.”
On the most surprising life skill she’s had to apply to her career in arts administration and artist funding:
Perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise, but the ability to accept constructive criticism plays such a critical role in building and maintaining relationships, and with moving ideas forward. Accepting criticism is not often easy—and sometimes we don’t like who’s delivering the message or how it’s being delivered—but taking a step back to examine, interrogate or redirect is almost always worth the effort.
On the biggest joy in managing comms for a national arts organization based in the emerging cultural ecosystem of Miami:
Working with artists.
On her cultural diet:
I’m obsessed with Sanford Biggers’s Spotify playlist “WeAreTheOracle”; and because of the pandemic, after more than a year hiatus, I have just started visiting local gallery openings again.
I’m taking a class on nonprofit strategy and organizing in the arts, so all of my recent reading has been assigned by our professor. I am, however, looking forward to re-reading Audre Lorde’s The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle The Master’s House.
On how she centers herself when navigating complex and challenging work situations:
Who will be most impacted by the decisions we make today? Putting the communities, audiences, stakeholders and the people we serve first is one of the most effective ways to maintain perspective during challenging situations.
Thankfully, I’m also surrounded by brilliant colleagues and collaborators who have offered invaluable guidance during difficult times—knowing I am surrounded by people smarter than me helps with keeping it cool during the unexpected bumps in the road.
On what she’s up to at 7 am on a Monday:
I’m definitely sleeping. I read in National Geographic that more people were reporting vivid dreams during the pandemic than usual. Though I can’t fully blame my love of sleep and dreaming on the many transitions prompted by COVID, I have come to embrace rest as a requirement, and I try to get my seven to eight hours every night.
On where we’ll find her at 7 pm on a Friday:
With windows that face both the east and west, sundown is usually the magic hour in my apartment. When I’m not sending one of the last emails of the week, feeling the beautiful glow of that evening light, I’m usually meeting up with friends, decompressing with a film, or taking a stroll on the boardwalk.
On an unsung figure in the Miami cultural community:
Dr. Enid Pinkney, a retired social worker and educator born in 1931 in Miami-Dade County, took it upon herself to restore and transform The Historic Hampton House.
Perhaps most recently celebrated as the place where Muhammad Ali (then Cassius Clay), Jim Brown, Malcolm X, and Sam Cooke gathered in 1964 because of Jim Crow segregation laws, the Brownsville-based Green Book motel is also the site where Martin Luther King, Jr. vacationed with family and delivered an early version of his legendary “I Have a Dream” speech.
Community archivist and storyteller Nadege Green often talks about the importance of memory work. On more than one occasion, I’ve heard her speak on the importance of telling our stories lest they be erased.
Now 90 years old, Dr. Enid Pinkney has devoted the past seven years of her life to preserving the astonishing Hampton House as an indelible part of Miami’s history—a place of Black joy, community and promise.
DEJHA’S MIAMI FAVORITES.
Miami anthem (current or classic!): Anything Trina.
Restaurants & bars: B&M Market, La Natural, Jaguar Sun.
Cafés, diners, bakeries, & ventanitas: À La Folie for French crepes.
Cultural centers, art shops, & bookstores: Little Haiti Cultural Complex; the PAMM Shop.
Shopping: KRELwear; the antique market on Lincoln Road every other Sunday.
Grooming: I keep it simple at Love Nail Salon.
The Great Outdoors: Oleta River State Park.
Small businesses & local vendors: ABA Jewels; Deon Rubi.
The recommendation you’ll always give to a first-time Miami visitor: Go to the ocean.
THANKS, DEJHA!
Follow Dejha at @carringtoner for excellent arts inspiration and artist recommendations, and support her work at both YoungArts (@youngarts) and with Commissioner (@cmxnr).
Until the next Variety Act Miami graces your inbox… un abrazo!