Ellies Connect

Ellies Connect is a virtual conversation series that invites previous winners of The Ellies to talk about their projects. Join us for a conversation between Michael Richards award winner Maria Martínez-Cañas and Leilani Lynch, curator at The Bass. The two will discuss the Michael Richards award and Martínez-Cañas’ upcoming project at The Bass.

About the Panelists

Maria Martínez-Cañas
Born in Havana, Cuba, Maria Martínez-Cañas has been widely recognized during a prolific career spanning over 40 years, with works of art in permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, Ford Foundation, International Center of Photography, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Smithsonian’s American Art Museum, Pérez Art Museum Miami, Walker Art Center and the Museum of Modern Art, in New York, amongst others.

Her career has been marked by an insatiable drive to experiment with different photographic techniques. She received a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Photography Fellowship and has been the recipient of many awards and grants, including a National Endowment for the Arts grant (1988) and a Civitella Ranieri Foundation fellowship (2014) in Umbertide, Italy.

Martínez-Cañas received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in photography from the Philadelphia College of Art and a Master of Fine Arts in photography from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has been a professor at New World School of the Arts since 1996, where she has mentored dozens of our city’s visual artists.

Leilani Lynch
Leilani Lynch is Curator at The Bass, Miami Beach. She has organized recent solo exhibitions with Mika Rottenberg, Karen Rifas, and Aaron Curry, in addition to co-organizing exhibitions with Abraham Cruzvillegas, Haegue Yang, Lara Favaretto, Pascale Marthine Tayou, Laure Prouvost, and Paola Pivi. Before joining The Bass’ curatorial team in 2015, she produced site-specific experimental exhibitions with local, national, and international artists at Locust Projects, Miami as Exhibitions Project Manager. Lynch has participated on panels and lectures for STPI – Creative Workshop, Singapore, ArtTable, and ICOM, and served on juries for Oolite Arts, FL, The Hopper Prize, and Apexart, NY.