Open to Artists, Cultural Practitioners, and Scholars from the Caribbean and its Diasporas, the Program Catalyzes Creative Projects and Research Advancing Caribbean Art and Scholarship

(MIAMI, FL — August 11, 2025) — Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) is pleased to announce the recipients of the sixth cycle of the Caribbean Cultural Institute (CCI) Fellowship Program, a program aimed at advancing the study of Caribbean art while providing opportunities for exchange and collaboration across the region and its diasporic communities. The 2025 CCI Fellowship recipients are M. Florine Démosthène, Rianna Jade Parker, and Celia Irina González. Taking place between September and December, the 2025 iteration of the program features three individual and self-directed fellowships: CCI Artist Fellowship, CCI Research Fellowship, and CCI + Women Photographers International Archive (WOPHA) Fellowship.

The sixth cycle of CCI Fellows was selected through an open call by Iberia Pérez González, PAMM’s Andrew W. Mellon Caribbean Cultural Institute curatorial associate; Marie Vickles, PAMM’s senior director of education; and Franklin Sirmans, Sandra and Tony Tamer director at PAMM. External collaborators included Aldeide Delgado, founder and director of WOPHA; Krys Ortega, curatorial and public programs manager at Bakehouse Art Complex; Tatiana Flores, Jefferson Scholars Foundation Edgar F. Shannon professor of art history at the University of Virginia; and Yina Jiménez Suriel, independent curator and researcher.

“This year’s cohort of CCI Fellows is united by their deep research orientation and an investment in alternative forms of knowledge,” said Iberia Pérez González. “From explorations into human-non-human relationships and ancestral memory to under-recognized artistic legacies, these fellows bring distinct methodologies and perspectives that reflect the richness and complexity of the Caribbean.”

CCI strives to provide visibility to Caribbean art in Miami through partnerships with local art organizations and institutions. Through research and production-based art fellowships, the program cultivates new ideas that challenge traditional conceptions of Caribbean art, generates innovative study of the region, and reflects upon the contemporary state of Caribbean art and thought.

M. FLORINE DÉMOSTHÈNE
2025 CCI Artist Fellow

M. Florine Démosthène was born in the United States and raised between Port-au-Prince, Haiti and New York. Démosthène earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Parsons School for Design in New York and her Master of Fine Arts from Hunter College-City University of New York.

She has exhibited extensively through solo and selected exhibitions in the United States, Caribbean, UK, Europe, and Africa, with recent solo shows including, What The Body Carries at Frist Art Museum Nashville, Mastering The Dream at SCAD Museum of Art Savannah, and In The Realm Of Love at Mariane Ibrahim Gallery in Paris, France.

She is a recipient of a New York Foundation of the Arts Artist Fellowship, Wachtmeister Award, Tulsa Artist Fellowship, Arts Moves Africa Grant, Black Star Award, and a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant. She has participated in artist residencies in the United States, Caribbean, UK, Slovakia, South Africa, Ghana, and Tanzania.

Her works are on view at National Museum for African American History and Culture, Africa First Collection, University of South Africa (UNISA), Lowe Museum of Art, Hessler Museum of Art, PFF Collection of African American Art, the City of Seattle Washington, and in various private collections worldwide.

RIANNA JADE PARKER
2025 CCI Research Fellow

Rianna Jade Parker is a writer, critic, historian, and curator. Her criticism and essays have appeared in ARTnews, Artforum, BOMB, Frieze, and The Guardian. She has contributed to numerous catalogue and gallery publications for Stephen Friedman Gallery, Thadeous Ropac, The Royal Academy, Hayward Gallery, Tate Etc, Camden Art Centre, Thames & Hudson, Phaidon Press, MoMA, and ICA Boston. She is a contributing writer at Frieze Magazine and a contributing editor for Tate Publishing. She is the author of “A Brief History of Black British Art” (Tate Publishing) and her second book is forthcoming (Frances Lincoln). Parker has programmed talks and screenings and has taught classes internationally at Cambridge University, Tate Britain, ICA London, Royal College of Art, South London Gallery, Black Cultural Archives, and Somerset House.

CELIA IRINA GONZÁLEZ
2025 CCI + WOPHA Fellow

Celia Irina González lives and works in Mexico City. She holds a Ph.D. in social anthropology from the Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City, and a master’s degree in visual anthropology from FLACSO, Ecuador.

She has participated in the exhibitions Emergent/cy, Entre Vienna, Austria; Cuba Dispersa, Cranbrook Art Museum, Detroit; Arte Latinoamericano, Colección MEIAC, Museo Extremeño e Iberoamericano de Arte Contemporáneo, Badajoz; Sin Authorización: Contemporary Cuban Art, Wallach Art Gallery, NY; Ojos de hueso, Angeles Baños Gallery, Spain; Esok, Jakarta Biennial, Indonesia; Kochi-Muziris Biennial, India; Cuban Pavilion, Venice Biennial; and Rendez-Vous, Lyon Biennial.

She has received the Botín Foundation Grant for Visual Arts and the Grants & Commissions Program from The Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation. She has been in residence at Reinbeckhallen Residency Program, Berlin; El Ranchito Residency, Matadero Center, Madrid in collaboration with Artista x Artista; Residency Program KulturKontakt, Vienna, Austria; and Skills Biennial, Gray’s School of Art, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen City.

ABOUT THE CARIBBEAN CULTURAL INSTITUTE

The Caribbean Cultural Institute (CCI) is a curatorial and research platform at Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) dedicated to promoting and supporting the artistic and cultural production of the Caribbean and its diasporas through exhibitions, research, fellowships, public programs, and collection development.

ABOUT PAMM

Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), led by Franklin Sirmans, Sandra and Tony Tamer Director, promotes artistic expression and the exchange of ideas, advancing public knowledge and appreciation of art, architecture, and design, and reflecting the diverse community of its pivotal geographic location at the crossroads of the Americas. The 41-year-old South Florida institution, formerly known as Miami Art Museum (MAM), opened a new building, designed by world-renowned architects Herzog & de Meuron, on December 4, 2013, in Downtown Miami’s Maurice A. Ferré Park. The facility is a state-of-the-art model for sustainable museum design and progressive programming and features 200,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor program space with flexible galleries; shaded outdoor verandas; a waterfront restaurant and bar; a museum shop; and an education center with a library, media lab, and classroom spaces.