We are thrilled to announce that Gala Porras-Kim, the 2025–26 Mary Miss Resident in Visual Arts at the American Academy in Rome, has been named a 2025 MacArthur Fellow. She joins a distinguished lineage of AAR Fellows and Residents who have received the MacArthur Fellowship, including 2023 Rome Prize Fellow and upcoming 2026 Visual Arts Resident Tony Cokes (MacArthur Fellow, 2024), and 2020 Fellow in Musical Composition Courtney Bryan (MacArthur Fellow, 2023).
Peter N. Miller, President and CEO of the American Academy in Rome, and a 1998 MacArthur Fellow himself, remarked on the enduring connection between the Academy and the MacArthur Foundation: “The ‘coincidence’ between MacArthur Fellows and Rome Prize Fellows (and Residents)—55 and counting—is no coincidence. The American Academy in Rome has been selecting for extreme creativity, for people whose skill, discipline, and free thinking propel them to new discoveries, for 132 years. We salute Gala Porras-Kim on this wonderful milestone and welcome her into the selective club of AAR and MacArthur honorees.”
In 2024, Porras-Kim presented A Recollection Returns with a Soft Touch at the Museo delle Civiltà in Rome, as part of EUR_Asia. Developed during her two-year research fellowship at the museum and as an Artist in Residence at MAO Torino, the installation explored the personal relationships between museum objects and the staff who care for them.
This year, she returned to Rome for an eight-week residency at the American Academy, expanding her engagement with the city, developing new projects, and sharing time with a recently arrived cohort of artists and scholars.
On October 9, Porras-Kim will present a talk and screening as part of the participatory workshop Weeds Against Stones: Resistances, a public program of the exhibition Women and Ruins: Archaeology, Photography, and Landscape. She will share recent works examining how historical objects in collections are shaped by systems of classification—tracing how institutional, historical, or natural categories influence interpretation.
As part of the exhibition, her project Rehearsal for Surveying the Ruins focuses on the Papaloapan River in Mexico, where toxic waters erode artifacts such as La Mojarra Stela 1, returning carved stones to the natural world.
Reflecting on the award, Porras-Kim stated: “I am deeply honored and humbled to receive this recognition. I am grateful for the time and consideration given to my work, and it is encouraging to know that the observations it presents have resonated with others. I hope to continue pursuing more nuanced and challenging lines of inquiry and to participate in broader conversations aimed at expanding the range of stakeholders recognized in the production of knowledge.”
Porras-Kim’s multidisciplinary practice spans drawing, sculpture, installation, and text, critically investigating how institutions shape cultural heritage and our understanding of historical artifacts. She has held solo exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, and has participated in major international exhibitions, including the Gwangju Biennale and the São Paulo Biennial.
Born in Bogotá, Colombia, she has received fellowships and awards from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Creative Capital, and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation. She holds an MFA from CalArts and an MA in Latin American Studies from UCLA.