In The Commons

Band of Vices is thrilled to announce our upcoming exhibition, In the Commons, curated by Jacqueline Valenzuela. 

In the Commons explores the idea that the commons—shared spaces, shared resources, shared responsibility—functions as a living theory of brownness. Here, "brownness" is not a fixed identity or a singular category, but a relational space, a porous field of becoming. It gestures away from the individual and toward the collective. In doing so, it challenges dominant frameworks that center singularity and visibility, instead foregrounding a communal ethos rooted in mutual care, interdependence, and collaboration.

To exist "in the commons" is to engage in a praxis that resists homogeneity. It is to acknowledge that the brown diaspora is not a monolith. Brownness, in this context, is not a predetermined or legible identity—it is not a surface to be read or a flag to be flown. It is unknowable in advance, flexible in form, and dynamic in expression. It holds space for contradiction, for difference, for complexity.

This exhibition brings together artists whose work inhabits this shifting terrain—artists who navigate multiplicity, who resist containment, and who engage in practices that bind community through shared labor, ritual, memory, and imagination. Together, they contribute to a conversation where the commons becomes a site of aesthetic and political possibility. A site where brownness becomes not a category to be defined, but a collective act of making, sensing, and becoming.