Pérez Art Museum Miami Expands Caribbean Cultural Institute

MIAMI – Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) is honored to announce a significant gift totalling $5 million from the Green Family Foundation (GFF) in support of the museum’s Caribbean Cultural Institute (CCI), a program aimed at advancing the study of Caribbean art while providing opportunities for exchange and collaboration across the region and its diasporic communities.

This transformative investment, part operating support, part endowment, will ensure the long-term sustainability of CCI while expanding its mission across Miami-Dade County. With this gift, CCI will be renamed The Green Family Foundation Caribbean Cultural Institute.

“The Green Family Foundation has always championed access, equity, and cultural exchange,” said Kimberly Green, President of GFF.

“Since 1991, GFF—founded by Ambassador Steven J. Green and Dorothea Green—has been committed to education in Miami-Dade County. Our deepened partnership with PAMM strengthens the creative collaborations, research, and documentation of the cultures that define the region. Supporting CCI means investing directly in the next generation of thinkers, scholars, and artists shaping our future.”

This $5 million multi-year gift deepens the foundation’s partnership with PAMM and establishes new collaborative pathways with Florida International University (FIU) and Green Space Miami, GFF’s platform for supporting Miami artists.

Through this partnership, CCI Fellows will gain access to FIU’s extensive Caribbean and Latin American research collections, archives, and libraries. FIU will also publish fellows’ research, expanding its reach across academic and international audiences.

The gift will also support paid undergraduate internships for FIU students, connecting emerging scholars to CCI’s research and curatorial initiatives.

Green Space Miami will additionally host co-programmed public forums, exhibitions, and annual gatherings that bring together artists, advocates, creatives, and educators from across the Caribbean and Miami-Dade County.

“We are honored by the Green Family Foundation’s extraordinary commitment to the Caribbean Cultural Institute,” said Franklin Sirmans, Sandra and Tony Tamer director at PAMM.

“Our collaboration with GFF is built on decades of trust, shared purpose, and a mutual commitment to Miami-Dade County. The foundation’s support ensures that CCI can continue to expand its long-term research, programming, and community initiatives—work that reflects Miami’s identity and deep ties to the Caribbean.”

In addition to the GFF gift, PAMM has also received funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to further strengthen CCI’s programs and impact.

“We are proud to deepen this work with PAMM, FIU, and Green Space Miami,” said Dorothea Green, PAMM trustee. “Extending CCI’s reach means strengthening the cultural and intellectual ties that connect Miami to the Caribbean. These collaborations open doors for students, for artists, and for communities across the county.”

CCI Fellows

The current cohort of CCI Fellows exemplifies the vision this gift will sustain, spanning art, research, scholarship, and cross-disciplinary inquiry.

• M. Florine Démosthène

Artist M. Florine Démosthène, this year’s CCI artist fellow, draws on her upbringing between Port-au-Prince and New York to explore Black female subjectivity and myth, creating lush, mixed-media works informed by ancestral memory and human–nonhuman relationships.

• Rianna Jade Parker

Research Fellow Rianna Jade Parker, a writer, critic, historian, and curator, is advancing her ongoing investigations into under-recognized Caribbean and diasporic legacies while contributing essays and programming for institutions from Tate Britain to Somerset House.

• Celia Irina González

Meanwhile, the CCI + Women Photographers International Archive (WOPHA) Fellow Celia Irina González, a Mexico City-based visual anthropologist, is delving into archival gaps and migratory memory, building on her participation in international exhibitions including the Venice Biennale, Lyon Biennale, and Kochi-Muziris Biennale.