Celebrating Caribbean Creativity

I grew up surrounded by art and by conversations about how culture shapes how we see the world and each other. From my family, I learned that cultural initiatives build community, spark curiosity, preserve memory and ultimately help bring people together to think about who we are. Those lessons, among others, inform how I think about Colección Tropicalia today.

In Miches, along the shores of Samaná Bay, Tropicalia brings together a resort, residences, cultural initiatives, and long-term social and environmental programs. It’s a project that asks how development can be thoughtful, how it can take care of a place, and grow with it over time. While Fundación Tropicalia leads programs in education, environmental stewardship, gender equity initiatives, and small business support, Colección Tropicalia supports artists and makers from the Caribbean and its diasporas. This initiative aims to create opportunities for dialogue, reflection, and for connecting different ways of seeing and expressing the region.

Right now, Colección Tropicalia is commissioning site-specific works, launching an open call for acquisitions, and actively acquiring works by artists from the Caribbean and its diasporas. We are also working on an editorial platform that documents creative processes and shares the stories behind the works and the people who make them.

The values that guide Tropicalia also guide this collection. A deep respect for the land. A belief in staying the course and thinking long-term, and a commitment to working with and learning from the people and histories that give meaning to a place. Colección Tropicalia grows from a long-standing commitment to culture and education, shaped in large part by the work of my mother, Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, and the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros. This example showed me how art collections, paired with intentional programming, can preserve memory, support scholarship, and open space for dialogue.

My goal is that the collection become a celebration of Caribbean creativity. I hope it contributes to ongoing conversations about art, place, and memory, both in the Dominican Republic and across the Caribbean. Visitors to this website will begin to see how this work unfolds. In the coming months, we’ll share stories and projects that explore the cultural and ecological contexts that shape the Caribbean and we will open up new opportunities for artists and collaborators from across the region and its diasporas.

Image: Ricardo Ariel Toribio, Untitled, 2024.