Our Residents

 In 2022, MIFA took a significant step forward expanding beyond its educational roots to become a broader platform for contemporary art, professional development, and curatorial exchange. It was during this chapter that the Artist Residency Program took shape, under the artistic direction of Marco Caridad.

What began as a framework for artists to develop their practices through studio work and mentorship gradually evolved into something more: a living community of creators sharing space, ideas, creative challenges, and exhibition opportunities under the same roof.

Annual group exhibitions and individual presentations gave residents a way to share their research and build relationships with audiences beyond the studio. Open Studios, artist talks, and workshops strengthened the connections between residents, the institution, and the wider cultural community of Miami. Caridad also developed a Curator-in-Residence program creating space for curatorial research, studio visits, and direct collaboration between artists and curators and brought local and international curatorial perspectives into MIFA's exhibition programming, supporting artists preparing their first solo exhibitions.

Over time, the residency grew into something that no single program could have planned. Presentations at venues including the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami and the University of Miami brought residents into dialogue with broader institutional contexts marking the residency not as a space apart from the art world, but as an active participant in it.

Today, the MIFA Artist Residency is a community of painters, sculptors, textile artists, printmakers, photographers, and interdisciplinary practitioners who share not just a building, but a commitment to the work. The studios, the openings, the conversations in the hallways all of it has shaped what the residency is, and what it continues to become.

24 private studios. 

A printmaking press. 

An infinity wall. 24/7 access. 

Exhibition opportunities. 

And a community that takes the work seriously.

This is what the residency offers today. And it is built on everything that has happened here every artist, every exhibition, every conversation that has passed through these walls.