Juan Carlos Alom 2022-23 Mellon Fellow

Juan Carlos Alom, born in Cuba in 1964, is a filmmaker and photographer who has exhibited throughout Cuba, the Americas, Europe, and South Africa. Starting his career as a photojournalist in 1990s Cuba, Alom developed an artistic vision informed by the need for spontaneity demanded by that period of crisis. Among the films that Alom has directed are Una Harley recorre la Habana (1998, “A Harley Travels Around Havana”), Habana Solo (2000), Evidencia (2001), Iroko (2004), Diario (2009). A retrospective of his 16mm films was screened at the 2018 Los Angeles festival “Ism, Ism, Ism: Experimental Cinema in Latin America.” Recent group exhibitions include “Without Masks: Contemporary Afro-Cuban Art,” Audain Gallery, Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver (2014), and “On the Horizon,” Pérez Art Museum, Miami (2017), among many others. Solo exhibitions have taken place at San Francisco Art Institute, Buzz Art Gallery, Miami; University of Connecticut Jorgensen Gallery; and El Apartamento Gallery, Havana. His work is held in permanent collections at Cuba’s Museum of Fine Arts; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Ludwig Forum for International Art, Germany; Fototeca de Pachuca, Mexico; the Pérez Art Museum; the University of Texas’s Blanton Museum of Art; Museo Reina Sofia and Tate Modern. In 2000, Time Magazine selected Alom as one of the photographers of the millennium in Latin America.

During his 2022-2023 academic year residency, Alom will present Finotype: Photographs by Juan Carlos Alom, as well as workshops and a lecture.

Land Acknowledgement

The Hemispheric Institute at New York University acknowledges with respect the Lenape nation, whose traditional homelands NYU now occupies. We recognize the longstanding significance of these territories for Lenape nations past and present. We acknowledge that we work in a city with the largest urban Native population in the United States. Even as we work to increase the historical awareness of Indigenous exclusion and erasure, we acknowledge the effect of that legacy in educational institutions, at NYU, and across the hemisphere. We are committed to work revealing Indigenous history and life-worlds and to the inclusion of Indigenous voices and participation, in allyship with Indigenous makers and communities across the Americas.

About Us

The Hemispheric Institute gathers artists, scholars, writers, learners, and activists from across the Americas. We focus on social justice and research politically engaged culture and performance. We share this work in digital archives and amplify it through dialogues and public scholarship, residencies, publications, and gatherings. Our dynamic, multilingual network traverses disciplines and borders and is grounded in the fundamental belief that artistic practice and critical reflection can spark lasting cultural change.