Edge Zones is proud to present the 17th edition of INDEX ’25, an international platform for artistic exchange between Miami and Santo Domingo that brings together contemporary voices across borders. This year’s program, curated by Gabriela Keddell, unfolds at the historic Quinta Dominica from July 3 to 7, showcasing a dynamic lineup of artists whose work bridges geography, identity, and imagination.
Edge Zones se enorgullece en presentar la 17ª edición de INDEX ’25, una plataforma internacional de intercambio artístico entre Miami y Santo Domingo que reúne voces contemporáneas a través de las fronteras. El programa de este año, curado por Gabriela Keddell, se desarrollará en la histórica Quinta Dominica del 3 al 7 de julio, con una selección vibrante de artistas cuyas obras conectan la geografía, la identidad y la imaginación.
Curator: Gabriela Keddell
Participating Artists:
Julianny Ariza | Tricia Cooke | Jacek Kolasinski | Mónica La Paz| Lucia Mendez | Raul Morilla | Patrick Oleson | Charo Oquet | Iris Perez | Luz Severino | Alette Simmons-Jiménez | Digno Roa
“Ecos Criollos: Entre Revoluciones, Archivos y Raíces Compartidas”
Conversation: “Creole Echoes: Between Revolutions, Archives, and Shared Roots”
July 4, 2025 | 11:00 AM | Auditorium of the National Museum of History and Geography, Plaza de la Cultura, Santo Domingo
IRIS PÉREZ ROMERO is a multidisciplinary artist working in the areas of drawing, painting, ceramics, sculpture, and performance. She graduated from the National School of Fine Arts, where she currently serves as a professor and director. Since 1990, she has developed a distinguished artistic career, participating in major group exhibitions, biennials, solo shows, and artist residencies across the Americas, Asia, Oceania, and Europe. In 2004, she represented the Dominican Republic in the Art Olympics held in conjunction with the Athens 2004 Olympic Games and was selected for the 4th, 5th, and 6th Beijing International Art Biennales at the National Art Museum of China (2010, 2012, and 2014). In 2012, she created the monumental sculpture Luz del Mundo in Santo Cerro, La Vega, Dominican Republic. Among her most notable solo exhibitions are Anatomy of Being at the Museum of Modern Art in Santo Domingo (2017), The Art of Resilience at Trinity Gallery in Seoul, South Korea (2022) and at the Cervantes Institute in Tokyo, Japan (2024), as well as Migrant Bodies, Exposed Bodies, presented on International Women's Day at the United Nations Office in Vienna, Austria (2023). Most recently, her work Among Butterflies (2022), created in tribute to the Mirabal sisters—Patria, Minerva, and María Teresa—who bravely opposed the dictatorship of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo and were assassinated on November 25, 1960, was donated to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) through the Dominican Republic’s Embassy and Permanent Mission in Vienna.
Digno Ricardo Roa Ramírez (1995, Santo Domingo, República Dominicana)
Artista visual dominicano. Su obra reciente es una exploración de la memoria, lo ritual y la ficción dominicana, tomando formas de escultura, pintura e instalación. Ha participado en múltiples exposiciones, entre ellas: Interés común, S/cavoli, Figura retórica (Centro Cultural Copey, Junta de Vecinex, Zona Colonial, Santo Domingo); Dominicanex (Zona Colonial, Santo Domingo); Ficciones, rituales y contratos (Alianza Francesa de Santo Domingo); Exposición de la colección permanente del Museo Casa Mella Russo y la XXX Bienal Nacional de Artes Visuales (Museo de Arte Moderno, Santo Domingo, R.D), entre otras.
Egresado de la Escuela Nacional de Artes Visuales de Santo Domingo (2017) y de la Escuela de Diseño Altos de Chavón, La Romana, República Dominicana (2019)
Su trabajo forma parte de las colecciones del Museo Casa Mella Russo y del Santo Domingo Country Club.
Patrick Oleson is a South Floridian teaching artist with Norwegian and Midwestern roots whose multidisciplinary practice revolves around community, movement, paint, and art education. He earned a BFA in Painting with a minor in Art History from New World School of the Arts, where he developed his aesthetic and conceptual approach under the mentorship of professors such as Jennifer Basille, Yohmarie Silva, Ray Morales, Ralph Provisero, Aramis O'Reilly, Don Lambert, Carol Todaro, Frederic Snitzer, Mette Tommerup, and Robert Chambers. His work is held in the collections of numerous Miami-based artists and has been exhibited at institutions including SuperBlue (2023), MIFA Gallery (2023), Coral Gables Museum (2023), Mindy Solomon Gallery (2019), Bridge Red Studios, Bass Museum (2024), New World Gallery (2024), and Edge Zones (2025). Oleson was awarded 2nd place in “Paint Me Miami” (2019) and was shortlisted for two Art in Public Places projects. He has contributed as a lead artist assistant on public art installations such as Mette Tommerup’s Sky of The First Water and Ocean Contour Painting, and later assisted Robert Chambers. In addition to his studio practice, Oleson is committed to arts education, teaching in public schools through partnerships with the ICA, Bass Museum, and Arts For Learning. He was a studio resident at Bakehouse Art Complex for three years and also held a residency at Fountainhead. His work—spanning painting, drawing, book-binding, collage, and installation—draws from both professional and personal experiences, engaging themes of connection, comfort, art history, and public transportation.
Mónica Lapaz (n. 1983, Santo Domingo) es una artista visual que trabaja principalmente con el dibujo y la pintura, cuya práctica está profundamente informada por su formación académica: una Licenciatura en Arquitectura de la Universidad Iberoamericana (UNIBE, 2006) y un técnico en Bellas Artes e Ilustración de Altos de Chavón, La Escuela de Diseño (2011). De ascendencia dominicana y uruguaya, Lapaz ha residido y trabajado continuamente en Santo Domingo. Tras sus estudios en Altos de Chavón, inició una serie de obras centradas en la arquitectura Art Decó de Gazcue, su barrio de infancia, que evolucionaron hacia una exploración más amplia del paisaje urbano de Santo Domingo. Ha participado en la Bienal Nacional de Artes Visuales del Museo de Arte Moderno en Santo Domingo y ha recibido apoyo de La Cooperativa mediante la beca Convite. Su trabajo ha sido presentado en ‘Independientes: Pardo Vol. 2’ (2023) en el Centro Cultural Banreservas —curada por Maurice Sánchez y Elisa Bergel Melo— y en una exposición independiente en la Feria Internacional de Arte MECA en Santo Domingo (2024).
Luz Seveverino, nació en República Dominicana, vive y trabaja en Martinica. Entre 1979-1985, estudio en la Escuela de Bellas Arte, Santo Domingo. 1986 obtuvo su diploma de Ingeniero civil, Universidad autónoma de Santo Domingo.1986 – 1987 Estudios de grabado, Liga de Estudiantes de Arte de New York, USA, y 1988, Grabado sobre metal, Bogotá-Colombia. 1990-1992, profesora de expresión creativa, universidad Unibe, Santo Domingo. 1995-1998, profesora de grabado, Altos de Chavon.
Dr. Jacek J. Kolasiński is a Polish-born interdisciplinary artist, designer, and curator whose work explores cultural convergence through spatial and social practices. His research-driven creative projects often center on the intersection of public space, community engagement, and aesthetic experimentation.
A central focus of his work is the Creole Archive Project, which investigates overlooked transnational connections between Poland and the Global South—especially Haiti—uncovering shared narratives of migration, memory, and resistance.
Dr. Kolasiński’s multimedia installations, curatorial work, and site-specific projects have been exhibited widely in the U.S. and abroad. He studied history and philosophy at the Jagiellonian University, earned an MFA from Florida International University, and a Ph.D. from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw.He is founding director of the Ratcliffe Incubator of Art + Design and professor of art + art history at Florida International University.
Alette Simmons-Jimenez Bio
Simmons-Jiménez’s practice exists as a continuum of transformations where her work in painting, moving images, sculpture, and installation represents experiences, gathered, as if from a bird’s eye view of her personal reality. She seeks the meaning of her journeys honoring the ambiguities, the connections, and the flow of nature and human existence. She engages viewers in a discourse between rootedness and impermanence, between past, present, and the circle of life.
The artist exhibits internationally in museums, galleries, and media festivals. She has been awarded artist residencies at MASSMoCa in Massachusetts, Ifitry in Morocco, Es Baluard Museum in Majorca. Other awards include a Miami-Dade Artist Grant, a Knight Arts Grant, a Miami-Dade Community Grant, Optica International’s Video Xuráu Mozu Prize in Spain, a Florida Enhancement Grant, a Purchase Award from Mobile Museum of Art, a Florida Artist Fellowship, and 1st Prize in Video at the XVIII Biennial in Santo Domingo in 1992.
Julianny Ariza Vólquez (1987, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic) is a Dominican visual artist whose most recent solo exhibition, Amas de leche (2024), was presented at Artpace in San Antonio, Texas. In the same year, she showcased her video work Aquellas tres mareas at the National Art Gallery in Livingstone, Zambia. In 2023, she developed the project Imaginaciones del mito, commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art of Puerto Rico (MAC), and participated in the Black Barcelona Encounter in Spain. She has taken part in several artist residencies, including Artpace (2024), Konvent Art Residency in Spain (2023), Rockland Woods in the U.S. (2023), the Office for Contemporary Art Norway (2021–2022), Künstlerhaus Schloss Balmoral in Germany (2013), and AS220 in the U.S. (2012). Ariza received awards at the 28th Eduardo León Jimenes Art Contest (2021) and the 27th National Biennial of Visual Arts of the Dominican Republic (2013). She is the co-creator of Onto, an editorial project focused on Dominican art. She studied at the National School of Visual Arts (2008), the School of Fine Arts, and the Altos de Chavón School of Design (2010). Her work forms part of the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Puerto Rico, the Museum of Modern Art, and Centro León in the Dominican Republic. Ariza has exhibited in numerous venues including MECA International Art Fair (DR), the New York Latin American Art Triennial (U.S.), Art Wynwood (U.S.), the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute (U.S.), Made in Balmoral Gallery (Germany), Centro Cultural de España (DR), Casa Quien (DR), the Museum of Modern Art (DR), Atrium Gallery (U.S.), and the National Gallery of Fine Arts (DR), among others.
Charo Oquet uses painting, installation, performance, photography, and film to explore themes of displacement, identity, and cultural hybridity, blurring the boundaries between ritual, memory, and contemporary visual culture to create immersive experiences that reflect on migration, gender, and decolonial aesthetics. In her recent series Fragments, Trances, and Improvised Architectures, Oquet returns to painting as a way to investigate the cyclical nature of creation, combining fragmented canvases, layered collage, and gestural sculptural forms in a process of erasure and reconstruction that mirrors transformation as an essential part of existence. Her abstract wooden sculptures extend this inquiry, acting as vessels of energy infused with spiritual and elemental forces, resonating like sacred objects. As she explains, “Much like life itself, these pieces serve as a reflection on our past, offering an opportunity for learning and growth as we shed the unnecessary to embrace a more fulfilling existence.” Through this process, her work becomes a meditation on renewal, movement, and the constant evolution of form and meaning.