Paola Fiterre (Creative Practices '19 and ICP Staff), whose practice centers on the representation of the female body as shaped by the migratory experience, has been awarded two prestigious artist residencies in 2026. From September 23–October 23, she will be in residence at The Watermill Center in Water Mill, Long Island, New York, where she will have the time and space to develop new work and expand her practice. 

The Watermill Center’s Artist Residency Program began in 2006. Each year collectives and individuals take up residence at The Watermill Center to develop works that critically investigate, challenge, and extend the existing norms of artistic practice.

The Artist Residency Program is process-based, without the expectation or promise of a final exhibition of the work. The Watermill Center provides artists with the time, space, and freedom to develop their practice in a communal environment that encourages experimentation. Artists-in-Residence share their creative process with the community through open rehearsals, workshops, and artist talks.

Fiterre will also be in residence with Residency Unlimited through the Cuban Artists Fund from September 1–30, 2026.

“In the midst of one of the most stressful and uncertain times we are experiencing globally, being awarded these two residencies feels especially meaningful. It marks an important milestone in my practice and offers a vital opportunity to continue creating and expanding my vision.
I am deeply grateful for this support, and it gives me a renewed sense of excitement for what lies ahead.”

 

ICP Creative Practices student Joana Toro is celebrating the launch of her new photobook, Rosalina, completed in February 2026 and now available for purchase.

The book is the result of a seven-year documentary project developed in collaboration with the community of San Basilio de Palenque, Colombia, centered on traditional healer Rosalina Cañates Pardo. Through documentary photography, cyanotypes, and texts in Spanish, Palenquero, and English, the project explores ancestral healing, memory, and the preservation of African diasporic knowledge.

"Launching Rosalina after seven years of work fills me with joy and gratitude. It has been a profound honor to witness the life of such a remarkable woman and to be welcomed by Rosalina and her community with such generosity and trust. This book comes from that encounter, but also from a deep sense of responsibility: to help make visible and preserve this visual testimony of healing traditions and community memory."

The launch of Rosalina is a significant chapter in Joana’s practice, bringing together years of collaborative documentary work, bookmaking, and cultural preservation into one publication.

Joana is a grantee of The Pulitzer Center and National Geographic. She is currently completing a one-year specialization in Creative Practices at the International Center of Photography (ICP), where she is working with archives and family memory.

Michela Palermo (Creative Practices '08) is one of 40 artists exhibiting in NO PLACE LIKE HOME, the first major retrospective exhibition to explore the evolution of Italian photography since the 1980s, showcasing how the country, emerging from the postwar economic boom, developed its own photographic visual language.

Some 300 works show Italy as seen through the eyes of about forty photographers. The spectrum of works on display includes portraits, conceptual and serial works, socially, politically, and societally situated photographs, and landscape photographs, which occupy a special place in Italian art. The exhibition addresses topics such as migration and the country’s imperialist past. Urban and rural spaces appear as places of both personal memory and collective identity. Photographs of people offer a diverse panorama: a confused elderly man wearing a skirt and diving goggles, teenage skateboarders, two lovers in an intimate embrace, a child holding a toy gun.

In addition to internationally renowned photographers of the 1980s, such as Guido Guidi, Gabriele Basilico, and Luigi Ghirri, the exhibition also focuses on the artistically significant phase of the 1990s and early 2000s, as well as on a younger generation that has provided important new impetus over the past two decades.