HOTBED was launched in Miami in 2010 by documentary art film and event producers Wet Heat Project as an annual showcase of exceptional, emerging talent and ideas from Miami's nascent art community, as personified by graduating BFA visual arts students at the city's renown New World School of the Arts.

The HOTBED project name is a testament to the fact that Miami— America's host city to more than a dozen major art fairs one week every December for tens of thousands of art professionals and collectors— is home base for a vigorous, burgeoning community of artists 365 days a year.