The Davidoff Art Initiative has selected five artists to participate in its inaugural Davidoff International Art Residency, hosted at the Altos de Chavón School of Design in La Romana, Dominican Republic. The program will offer participants the chance to engage both socially and culturally with Altos de Chavón and the local community.

The five emerging and mid-career artists are: Alia Farid (born 1985, Puerto Rico), Nuria Montiel (born 1982, Mexico City), Cathleen Mooses (born 1982, Chicago), Mathilde Rosier (born 1973, Paris), and Soledad Salamé (born 1954, Santiago, Chile). The 10-week residency program will run from January 18 to April 5, 2015, in newly constructed artist studios designed by Adolfo Despradel, Altos de Chavón’s director of planning and design.

Artists were nominated by international art world professionals including Aaron Cézar, founding director of London’a Delfina Foundation; Amanda Coulson, co-founder and executive director of VOLTA and director of the National Gallery of the Bahamas; San Francisco Art Institute president Charles Desmarais; Mareike Dittmer of Frieze d/e Magazine and Frieze Magazine; Pablo Helguera, director of adult and academic programs in the department of education at New York’s Museum of Modern Art; SITE Santa Fe director and chief curator Irene Hofmann; and Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing director Philip Tinari.

From the nominees, participants were selected by the Davidoff International Advisory Council, which includes Rocío Aranda-Alvarado of New York’s El Museo del Barrio; Dominique Bluhdorn of the Altos de Chavón Cultural Center Foundation; Hans-Kristian Hoejsgaard, CEO and board member of the Oettinger Davidoff AG; Dominican art historian and Estudiol de Sur founder Sara Hermann; New York-based, Budapest-born writer and researcher András Szántó, who is also the chief consultant to the Davidoff Art Initiative; and the Guggenheim UBS MAP curator for Latin America, Pablo Léon de la Barra.

Dedicated to supporting Dominican and Caribbean artists, the Davidoff Art Initiative began organizing residency programs for Caribbean artists in New York, Berlin, and Beijing last year. The new Dominican Republic program creates a two-way global exchange, bringing international artists to the Caribbean.

“Ever since we initiated the Davidoff Art Initiative, we knew that we wanted to engage a dialogue between the Caribbean and the rest of the world,” said Hoejsgaard. “Our primary means to do so was to make sure Caribbean artists could spend time overseas and international artists could spend a meaningful amount of time engaging with the arts and culture of this country and region. With the selection of the first group of incoming international artists, this aspiration is now becoming a reality, and we could not be more pleased with the exceptional artists who were selected for the first year.”