Residents

The 2026 cycle of Biolumina brings together international artists working across bioart, painting, live video, and material-based practices. Rooted in Vieques, Puerto Rico, this inaugural cycle emphasizes slow creation, site-based research, and meaningful exchange with landscape, ecology, and memory.

2026 Cycle

Germarilis Ruiz Galloza

San Juan, Puerto Rico

Bioart · Biodesign · Sustainable Materials

Germarilis develops sustainable biomaterials and fabrication processes that imagine new forms of coexistence between living organisms and human systems. Her work transforms organic waste—such as sargassum, coffee residues, coconut fiber, banana peels, and bioplastics—into textiles and climate-resistant surfaces inspired by the visual richness of the Caribbean. During her residency at Biolumina, she will continue developing Luminico, a luminous installation combining blown glass, biomaterials, and cultivated bioluminescence, inviting reflection on care, sustainability, and ecological responsibility.

Miami, Florida, USA

Live Video · Generative Systems · Transdisciplinary Practice

Dimitry Saïd Chamy

Dimitry practice creates conditions for emergence, where memory, gesture, signal, and ritual unfold through time. At Biolumina, he will develop Signals from the Edge, a live video projection project built from footage collected on site in Vieques. Performed in real time using VJ software, the work responds to sound, movement, and weather, transforming walls, trees, and suspended fabrics into ephemeral, site-responsive installations.

For over fifteen years, Silke Silkeborg’s practice has focused exclusively on the night. Painting on site and at night, she combines nocturnal fieldwork with written reflections that document perception, atmosphere, and lived experience. Her recent work engages with biological light phenomena, particularly bioluminescence. At Biolumina, she will pursue an immersive investigation of luminous waters in Vieques, creating nighttime color studies that will later inform large-scale oil paintings, alongside written texts reflecting on perception, visibility, and the psychological impact of encountering the glowing sea.

Leipzig, Germany

Painting · Writing · Night Studies

Silke Silkeborg

John’s practice understands memory as an act of resistance. Working primarily on paper, he treats the surface as an archive—layering drawing, printmaking, transferred imagery, and material traces to construct tactile maps of remembrance. During his residency at Biolumina, Colón will conduct a site-based investigation of Vieques’s layered histories, particularly its relationship to U.S. imperialism and military occupation. Through walking, rubbings, relief printing with local soils and flora, and exposing paper to environmental conditions such as rain, his work allows the landscape itself to inscribe memory onto the surface.

Miami, Florida, USA

Mixed Media · Drawing · Printmaking · Paper-Based Practices

John Dominic Colón

“Rooted in Vieques, Puerto Rico, this inaugural cycle emphasizes slow creation, site-based research, and meaningful exchange with landscape and community.

From biomaterial cultivation and bioluminescence to nocturnal painting, live video systems, and material archives of memory, the selected practices approach light, territory, and history through distinct yet interconnected lenses. Together, they position Biolumina as a space where art functions as a living process—one grounded in care, attention, and the entanglement of material, ecological, and political realities”.

— Marco Caridad

JURY — 2026 CYCLE

The artists were selected through an invited juried process by:

  • Sarabel Santos-Negrón — Contemporary artist, educator, and museum professional

  • Dennys Matos — Curator and art critic

  • Félix Suazo — Curator, art critic, and researcher

  • Carola Bravo — Curator, artist, and educator