The Order of New Arts (ONA)
After completing my MFA in Photography, my practice began to move from image-making toward institution-building. I wanted to create a space where artists and audiences could encounter art as a living dialogue rather than a static display. That vision became The Order of New Arts (ONA), a free museum in Philadelphia dedicated to reimagining what an art institution can be.
ONA, meaning “art” or “way” in Yoruba, is committed to forging paths for artistic expression that place material culture at the center of understanding the world. We unite the public in dialogue with creatives, curators, and scholars to activate our mission through exhibitions, residencies, and educational programming. Grounded in the belief that humanity’s shared histories and migrations connect us all, ONA carves out a new way forward, fostering creative growth and critical reflection on what it means to be human.
ONA is structured around two interconnected galleries. The Permanent Collections Gallery features artworks and cultural objects from both public and private collections, allowing visitors to see how art has reflected human dignity, struggle, and imagination across time. The Contemporary Gallery commissions artists to create new work in direct response to these collections, turning the museum into a site of active exchange between past and present.
Our inaugural exhibitions opened together on October 9, 2025. The first, Black Futures in Global Struggles: The Zuberi Family Collection, curated by Vanicléia Silva-Santos, presents forty works that trace the visual languages of liberation and resistance across continents and centuries. The exhibition includes artists such as Alison Saar, Carrie Mae Weems, Kerry James Marshall, Melvin Edwards, Rubem Valentim, and Emanoel Araújo, among others.
Alongside it, Visions of a New Order, which I curated, features six newly commissioned works by Zora J. Murff, Meesha Goldberg, Steph Foster, Patricia Renee Thomas, William Camargo, and Sanie Bokhari. Together, these artists interrogate the idea of the artistic order itself, exploring its origins, ruptures, and possibilities for renewal. Their work asks how meaning has been constructed through art and how that meaning might now be remade.
Two of the exhibiting artists, Sanie Bokhari and Steph Foster, are fellow RISD alumni whom I had the privilege of studying alongside during my MFA program. Seeing their work in this context felt like a continuation of conversations that began in critique rooms and studios years ago. Their inclusion embodies the spirit of collaboration and shared inquiry that first inspired me at RISD and continues to animate ONA's vision.
At its core, ONA’s mission is to collect and support creativity and scholarship that empowers the public’s understanding of what it means to be a human. Every exhibition, commission, and program grows from that belief. The museum exists not to guard history, but to grow from it, creating a living space where art connects people across time and place, and where the shared pursuit of understanding becomes a creative act in itself.
