Imna Arroyo: Art of the Diasporic Experience Influences, Impact, Importance

Join us for a panel discussion on Imna Arroyo’s works of art featured in her current exhibition Opening Paths (on view through Sept. 22). This discussion will be led by Curator Migdalia Salas. Participants include Executive Director of the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute Melody Capote, Art Historian Susan Noyes Platt, and featured artist Imna Arroyo.

Time: 5:30 – 7:00 pm
Cost: Free
RSVP to 860.443.2545 ext. 2129 or [email protected].

Imna Arroyo

Imna Arroyo is a Puerto Rican artist living and working in eastern Connecticut whose work weaves the threads of heritage and ecological veneration into a contemporary artistic dialogue. In her multidisciplinary practice, she finds inspiration in the concept that art-making can be a ritualized form of healing.

Born in Guayama, Puerto Rico, Imna Arroyo studied at La Escuela de Artes Plasticas del Instituto de Cultura in San Juan, Puerto Rico and obtained her BFA from Pratt Institute and her MFA from Yale University.

Imna Arroyo has been the recipient of numerous awards and grants, among them the title of Connecticut State University (CSU) Professor in 2010 in recognition of her teaching, mentorship and nationally and internationally acclaimed artistic achievements and, in 2007, the honorary title of Chief Yeye Agboola of Ido Osun (Chief Mother of the Garden of Honor) in recognition of selfless service to enrich the Ido-Osun Kingdom. She was awarded the 2012 Outstanding Latino Cultural Award from the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education for artistic achievements that have contributed significantly to the understanding of Latino culture.

Arroyo has exhibited extensively throughout the United States, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Panama, Mexico and the Czech Republic. Her work can be found in numerous collections including the Museum of Modern Art Library/Franklin Furnace Artist Book Collection, Yale Art Gallery and Schomberg Center for Research and Black Culture.

Melody Capote

Melody Capote is executive director of the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute.  Instrumental in developing CCCADI into a vital institution dedicated to the preservation of African Diaspora culture, she has ushered this next chapter with a renewed commitment to advancing racial and social justice. Capote brings invaluable institutional memory and has taken on the task of leading CCCADI in new directions that remain rooted in its history as a trailblazer for cultural affirmation.  During the pandemics of Covid-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, she implemented the #ArtsGoBlack initiative challenging the arts and culture organizations of NYC, to address the racist practices of their organizations, boards, staff and programs. This campaign birthed the CCCADI Institute for Racial and Social Justice for Arts & Culture intended to advocate for an arts and culture ecosystem that is grounded in racial and social justice and cultural equity.

Susan Noyes Platt, PhD

Susan Noyes Platt an independent art historian, curator, freelance art critic, monthly columnist, and blogger at artandpoliticsnow.com based in Seattle, Washington. Her blog posts emphasize traditionally marginalized artists.  She has taught twentieth-century art criticism at several state universities. She has written essays about the work of Imna Arroyo and worked closely with her in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s as they both served in leadership positions (both past national presidents) for the Women’s Caucus for Art (WCA), a United Nations affiliated non-governmental agency. Noyes was very engaged in Imna’s work and life during the 80s and 90s awakening and informing Imna’s feminist views during the time they were involved with the Women’s Caucus. Read her blog entry on Imna Arroyo here and her book here.

Migdalia Salas

Migdalia Salas (she/her) is an independent art consultant and curator working with cultural institutions, collectors and individual mid-career artists. Salas has collaborated with multidisciplinary groups in organizing regional, national and international art, literary and theatrical and scholarly projects including public art projects, art exhibitions in galleries, universities and museums including but not limited to the Newark Museum of Art, the Hilliard Museum and the United Nations among others.

She holds degrees in art history and cultural anthropology, with a master’s degree in organizational management with a research focus on cultural leadership within the feminine diaspora. In addition, Salas has also participated in the Museum Studies Program at Tufts University specializing in curatorial practice.

Since 2003 she has been working closely with Imna Arroyo and is a scholar of the artist’s career and work.