TEMPERATURE CHECK

An ISE-DA initiative taking the pulse of Black cultural stewardship.

“What are the potentials of growing Black patronage across the diaspora, and how can we cultivate lasting infrastructure for cross-diasporic cultural exchange and support as a new generation of Black patrons emerges?”

Temperature Check™ is a traveling research initiative documenting Black cultural stewardship across the African diaspora.

ABOUT TEMPERATURE CHECK

Developed in 2022, Temperature Check™ documents Black cultural stewardship across the African diaspora — producing a longitudinal record of how Black patronage functions as cultural infrastructure, city by city, generation by generation. Through field programming and original scholarship, the initiative examines Black art ecosystems and the development of patronage across diasporic cities, and how local and international Black patrons can actively sustain the cultural infrastructure of the communities they are part of.

The work is organized across two formats:

Research Volumes — flagship two-year engagements with a single regional focus combining deep field research, original scholarship, and patron convenings. Volume One: Brazil.
Field Visits — active presence at significant cultural moments across the diaspora — biennials, art fairs, institutional openings — that extend the research between volumes and seed future inquiry.

APPROACH

Temperature Check is conceived and led by practitioners working inside the ecosystems it documents. Research is conducted through direct relationships with the artists, gallerists, curators, collectors, and cultural leaders shaping each city's cultural life. That proximity is the methodology — and it produces a quality of documentation that distance cannot replicate.
Temperature Check enters each city as a sustained research presence. Programming is built around direct engagement with local artists, gallerists, curators, and cultural leaders — practitioners whose knowledge of their own ecosystem shapes the research from the inside. Each Research Volume is determined by the city it documents, not imposed upon it.
Across Research Volumes and Field Visits, Temperature Check constructs a cumulative record of Black patronage as a global tradition. What emerges city by city becomes, in aggregate, a longitudinal map of how Black cultural production and stewardship operate across the diaspora — its shared conditions, its distinct expressions, and the infrastructure required to sustain it.

Launched in São Paulo in September 2025, Temperature Check’s first iteration centered around a week of programming during the São Paulo Biennial and the Rotas Brasileiras art fairs. The initiative engaged Afro-Brazilian professionals, patrons, and cultural leaders during a period of vibrant artistic activity, laying the groundwork for ongoing research and programming over the subsequent two years.

The São Paulo immersion week was co-organized with 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair and in partnership with Latitude: Platform for Brazilian Galleries and Cutuca Projetos Culturais. ISE-DA and 1-54’s decision to join forces reflected our organizations’ aligned missions of championing African and diasporic art and cultivating new generations of collectors.

From intimate studio visits to immersive residencies, participants explored São Paulo through a rich and dynamic cultural lens, celebrating the voices shaping the global contemporary art landscape. This convergence and advisory tour fostered cross-generational exchange in a dynamic environment, set against the vibrant backdrop of São Paulo’s artistic scene.

Temperature Check received international press coverage, with additional features forthcoming.

São Paulo marked a pivotal moment for ISE-DA — connecting Black collectors, artists, and institutions across regions.

Building on the momentum of São Paulo, Temperature Check will continue its multi-year focus across Brazil — expanding connections between Black collectors, artists, and institutions through upcoming convenings in Brazil.