HoneyLab Creative | The ReefLine

Ximena Caminos is a Cultural Entrepreneur and one of the most unconventional creatives of her generation. Known for her post-disciplinary approach that bridges culture, community-building, urban development, and placemaking, she is the Artistic Visionary Planner for The Underline, the largest public art project in the US.  Caminos is the Founder of the cross-disciplinary cultural platform HoneyLab, Founder and Chair of BlueLab Preservation Society, a non-profit dedicated to educate and inspire global environmental action, the former Artistic Director and Chair of Faena Art, and Partner and CCO of the multi-award winning Faena Group. An XPrize ambassador, Caminos is a Member of the New Museum Leadership Council, a Founding Member of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum’s Latin American Circle Partner, Board Member of Art Basel Cities and recipient of Knight Foundation Arts Champion Award and Knight Foundations Arts Challenge Award 2019.

HoneyLab is committed to solving relevant issues regarding the negative human footprint in our environment by combining art, design, science, and sustainability. The end result is to create new paths of consciousness, both culturally impactful and groundbreaking.  

HoneyLab’s project, the ReefLine, is an Underwater Sculpture Park and Snorkel Trail at a swimmable distance from Miami Beach; composed of 9 miles of artificial reefs designed by the best contemporary artists and designers. The ReefLine will highlight the cities of Miami and Miami Beach as creative, forward thinking cities, and worldwide examples of art-minded and ecologically-conscious destinations, while serving as a resilient reef providing critical habitat for endangered organisms, forming a unique marine sanctuary.

 The Reefline is an investment in the community's civic infrastructure, public art, and environmental protection that will pay dividends over the coming decades by protecting the shoreline, raising active awareness about our ocean, and attracting tourists worldwide.

The Reefline's main focus is to solve problems concerning our marine ecosystem. From storm surge protection, coral restoration, water pollution, and climate change, to civic engagement towards the environment. The ReefLine will bring the community together, through art and active awareness; educating locally, the cities of Miami Beach, Miami and its Metropolitan area, as well as an international audience estimated at 23 million tourists per year, through programs initiated in collaboration with local foundations and academic institutions such as Harvard GSD, Columbia GSAPP, and the University of Miami OHHC and RSMAS. 

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the World Bank, amongst the scientific community and other international agencies, have expressed grave concern about the current and future condition of coral reefs across the world, having experienced a health decline due to a combination of threatening factors including water pollution, coral disease, coral bleaching, high ocean temperatures, and negative human impact.

As the only barrier reef off the continental U.S., Florida's coral reefs are at risk of ocean acidification. As the climate changes and warms, the ocean absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere which causes threats to coral reefs around the world.

HoneyLab’s project, the ReefLine, is a creative and artistic solution for coral reef restoration that inspires and elevates the community with a local and global impact, an example of resiliency to replicate worldwide. 

The ReefLine is an Underwater Sculpture Park and Snorkel Trail at a swimmable distance from Miami Beach; composed of 9 miles of artificial reefs designed by the best contemporary artists and designers. This marine sanctuary will serve as critical habitat for reef organisms, as well as enhance coastal resilience.

HoneyLab brings an idiosyncratic approach to the presentation, discussion, and exhibition of contemporary art forms, building new models and platforms to catalyze experimentation across the Arts, Sciences, Philosophy, Tech, Politics, and Urbanism.

We collaborate with the most relevant disruptors of our time—from artists to architects, poets to social leaders—including Jenny Holzer, architect Rem Koolhaas and Norman Foster. Ximena Caminos, HoneyLab’s founder, has been shaping the arts and cultural global scene for more than two decades.

Our goal as Cultural Entrepreneurs is to create acts of urban acupuncture serving and harnessing the forces of the art as a tool for change, promoting the cross-pollination of ideas and civic engagement through public programming and world-class activations.

The symbiotic characteristics of human impact in our environment gives us, as human beings, an unquestionable responsibility to help resolve the climate crisis, with its negative implications that are reaching the vast layers of our mother earth.

The positive impact of the ReefLine will bring together, through art and active awareness, the communities of Miami Beach, Miami and its Metropolitan area, including an international audience of 23 million tourists per year; while restoring the habitat for endangered species in the marine ecosystem and promoting educational human interaction with the environment, through programs initiated in collaboration with foundations and academic institutions such as Harvard GSD, Columbia GSAPP and the University of Miami OHHC and RSMAS.

Today we’re relying on our cities to be at the forefront of social innovation and the cities of Miami and Miami Beach are playing a strong leadership role. We collaborate with specific government officials that help us to achieve our goals.

HoneyLab thrives to elevate communities and its ecosystems by building awareness, driving action to solve the current and most difficult problems - that’s how we relate to The Elevate Prize.

HoneyLab would leverage the platform that Elevate provides, expanding and deepening our mission to solve the negative human impact on our environment, particularly with the ReefLine.

HoneyLab, with its inclusive and innovative spirit, is playing a strong leadership role in advocating the importance of one's involvement in the global environmental crisis and collaborating with cities and practitioners from all fields, instilling urgency. 

I moved to Miami to help transform Miami's Mid-Beach neighborhood into a magnet, a new cultural epicenter, an 8-block cultural district called FAENA.  

In 2018, I embarked on a new chapter with the launch of a creative think tank, HoneyLab Creative, and its nonprofit arm BlueLab Preservation Society, which is an interdisciplinary, impact-driven, eco-philanthropic 501c3, seeking to reconcile us with the water world and help solve environmental issues.

Furthermore, I became an XPrize Ambassador, winning an innovation and sustainability prize through the development of a new biodegradable plastic.

The projects we do at HoneyLab are my passion: Art+Science+Sustainability. Our goal is to inspire, educate, and elevate the world around us through insightful site-specific art installations, urban acupuncture, the development of cultural happenings that merge grassroots talent, progressive sponsors, total inspiration... and so much more.

The ReefLine is a legacy project, an ecologically-conscious and art minded destination, composed of a team of experts: OMA, Betsy Wheaton from the City of Miami Beach, Mohsen Mostafavi from Harvard GSD, and University of Miami Marine Biologists.

Honeylab is playing an intrinsic role in re-defining the city's identity, and this project will reinforce it, in the path as a forward-thinking city.

It is important that my work impacts the lives of others in a positive way. I want to educate, inspire, and affect positive change in the world through my work.

Protecting our planet, in particular, is something I am very passionate about. HoneyLab/The ReefLine is a legacy project with an investment in civic engagement, public art, and environmental protection. The resiliency of the shoreline is at risk from storm surge and sea level rise, The ReefLine will provide critical habitat for endangered reef organisms and attract ecologically minded tourists and art lovers. 

I love to work with cities and put them at the forefront of social innovation, using the power of art as a catalyst to push forward science, resiliency, and sustainability. I’m also passionate about working with incredible teams, and I feel that one of my biggest strengths is to create ground-breaking projects composed of extraordinary individuals from across different fields. It’s also my passion to connect people and opportunities in order to elevate their path, thus creating a positive impact on the whole human dimension.

Since 2004, I've been pioneering the creation of innovative practices and strategies for some of the world’s most influential leaders and "changemakers". Managing projects with budgets that range from $300,000 to $1 billion, the objective is always to place art and culture at the forefront of all of my endeavors, successfully bridging the realms of art, entertainment, community-building, and urban development with a strong cultural anchor plus a powerful international impact. 

I’ve led the development of 2 large scale Cultural Districts in Buenos Aires and Miami, successfully managing a wide-range of fields such as, city-coding, architectural design, and cultural analysis.

Over the last 30 years, I've commissioned and produced over 80 site-specific installations of the world's most important artists: Jenny Holzer, Richard Long, James Turrel, Ernesto Neto, and Leandro Erlich, just to name a few.

For each of my projects, I create interdisciplinary teams composed of experts that commit to reaching the highest levels of execution. We aspire to discover and solve solutions to the world's most challenging issues through art and culture - with open hearts, positive minds, and active leadership.

When we decided to build the Faena Forum, the code of the city said the forum could only be a hotel.  We could not make a cultural center. After a year and a half of studying the laws and strategy, we managed to create what is now called a District Overlay, which is a whole layer of law on top of the existing law. We managed to successfully gift the city with a $200 million arts center, called Faena Forum, designed by Pritzker Prize Winner, Rem Koolhaas. 

I believe adversity is something that can be turned around to work in your favor. One must be flexible, adapt, and change, if necessary, to make things happen. Every problem has a solution.

The scale of the projects I have created and directed presented continuous challenges, such as, city codes and permitting approval, funding, design issues, tight timelines, etc.

My flexibility, criteria, and efficiency have made them successful.

In 2016, I created “Tide by Side Processional Performance”, an artistic processional performance composed of over 30 Miami-based cultural groups, for the opening of the Faena Forum. The goal was to celebrate the diverse community of Miami with performances, food, dance, and music. The City did not want to grant the permit to shut down Collins Avenue, and my partners did not want to provide funds for the procession, so I ended up raising $1.5 million marketing dollars to produce it.

Because of my perseverance and leadership, we ended up making the largest artistic professional performance Miami Beach has ever seen. We shifted the City's gravitational center with our project and cultural content. 

I've also been chosen as Xprize Ambasador. The category was created for me specifically, because I am viewed as a catalyst and amplifier of interesting messages, a trend setter or trailblazer, if you will; someone that spearheads movements - a leader.

I understand the importance of community building and leading by example, that's why I've Chaired two 501c3's, Faena Art and BlueLab, and sit on several boards and advisory circles.