Grant opportunity for MA and PhD students enrolled in graduate university programs in the US and abroad to conduct novel investigations into themes, geographies, and chronologies of modern and contemporary art and visual culture from Latin America, the Caribbean, and the diaspora. The Research Grant will award grantees up to US$2,500. Grantees will be chosen by a selection committee of scholars and arts professionals.
Re se a r ch
ISLAA’s research and scholarship initiatives are central to our organization. We offer funding and support to emerging and established scholars, including access to physical and digitized materials from our Library and Archives. In-house research programs include the Scholar in Residence and Writer in Residence programs and the ISLAA Research Grant. Calls for applications, and research by ISLAA-supported scholars, are posted on our website.
Our on-site reading room will be closed for in-person visits to the ISLAA Library and Archives this summer as we prepare to move to our new space in the fall.

ISLAA's on-site reading room operates by appointment only. To make an inquiry, please email [email protected] with the subject line "Reading Room"; a brief (250-word max) summary of your research project, specifying proposed topics of focus during your time on-site; and proposed dates for your visit.
Please note that research appointments are limited and require one month's advance notice. Thank you for your patience.
Fellowships & Grants
Research Grant
New application cycle just opened!
Graduate students conduct research globally toward MA or PhD dissertations, peer-reviewed journal articles, and/or professional conference presentations
Scholar in Residence
Program by invitation
Leading scholars connect with international audiences by commissioning educational materials that draw from these scholars’ vast research and expertise
By focusing on accessible, shorter-form content, ISLAA offers inviting points of entry for our community of curious and engaged arts professionals and art enthusiasts. Building on longstanding reserves of knowledge and study, Scholars in Residence develop new projects for ISLAA’s online platforms.
Writer in Residence
Summer 2023 residents just announced! Winter 2024 application cycle to be announced in the Fall
Emerging scholars spend 4–5 weeks at ISLAA exploring rare books and special collections
ISLAA’s Writer in Residence offers an intimate, object-focused approach to archival research, inviting emerging scholars from diverse backgrounds to explore our materials on postwar Latin American art.
For the first time since the Writer in Residence program’s founding in 2018, in 2023 ISLAA is issuing an open call for proposals inviting emerging and established researchers worldwide to apply, including students, faculty, and independent scholars.
Fellows in Residence
- Benjamin Murphy
Centro de Arte y Comunicación (CAYC)
- Maggie Borowitz
Collection of Artist's Books by Anna Bella Geiger
- Jorge Lopera
Collection of Artist's Books by Anna Bella Geiger
- Irene Rihuete-Varea
The Manuel Herreros de Lemos and Mateo Manaure Arilla Collection
- Joseph Shaikewitz
The Manuel Herreros de Lemos and Mateo Manaure Arilla Collection
- Irene García
"El Dibujazo" Collection
- Patricia Roig Canepa
"El Dibujazo" Collection
Past Fellows
- Abel González FernándezJan 1–Feb 12, 2022
Abel González Fernández is a writer and curator whose work focuses on mid-century art and design and contemporary art practices. González Fernández is the assistant curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD), where he is currently working on the first solo museum exhibition of Mark Thomas Gibson, along with the museum’s artistic director, Jova Lynn. In 2023 he graduated from the Center for Curatorial Studies (CCS), Bard College, where he focused his thesis research on contemporary Latinx art. Prior to MOCAD, González Fernández curated exhibitions in Havana, Berlin, Tokyo, and New York. In 2019, he was awarded a grant from the Prince Claus Fund Next Generation Program. Between 2022 and 2023, he curated Sin Autorización: Contemporary Cuban Art, at the Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University, and held a fellow position at Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM). González Fernández is one of the curators of the first exhibition on Caribbean mid-century modernism in an American museum, which will open in 2024 at Cranbrook Art Museum, Detroit. He is one of the contributing writers of Roberto Jacoby, Art from the End of the World: Six Decades of Sound and Fury (2023), an extensive publication on Argentine artist Roberto Jacoby, in collaboration with the Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA) and CCS Bard.
- William SchwallerJul 1–Aug 31, 2021
William Schwaller is PhD graduate from Temple University. An essay resulting from his Writer in Residence is forthcoming.
Rebecca Yuste-Golob is a PhD student at Columbia University who researched the César Paternosto Papers at ISLAA. An essay resulting from her Writer in Residence is forthcoming.
Megan Kincaid is a PhD student at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. Her research on Sarah Grilo and José Antonio Fernández-Muro resulted in an exhibition at ISLAA, related exhibition programming, and an essay in ISLAA's in-house journal Vistas 6.
Christopher Williams-Wynn is a PhD candidate in art history at Harvard University.
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Paola Peña Ospina is a professor and researcher of sociology at the Universidad de Antioquia, in Colombia (2009) and an independent curator. She holds a master's degree in art history from the Universidad de Salamanca, in Spain (2012). Her research focuses on Colombian and Latin American art. She is interested in historical research that makes visible artists and practices that have not been considered in the most official accounts of art history. In this vein, she has published the books Sobre arte: Carlos Echeverry y el arte correo (2021) and Al mismo tiempo: Historias paralelas del videoarte en Colombia (2019). Peña Ospina has also written several texts with the aim of enriching discussions around contemporary artistic practices and allowing the emergence of new discourses in the field.