The shrine has long stood as a symbol of ancestral veneration, an access point for transitioned souls, and a repository for collective memories. Shrines are both personal and communal spaces depending on their method of installation. The Oracle is an immersive project that will comprise a monumental work on canvas and the installation of an evocative modern-day shrine. This project will explore concepts that are not bound by a particular time frame, combining objects that become contemporary relics. By mining the past to propose an alternate future, it alludes to the capacity for traditions to persist and be reenvisioned through the diaspora. The Oracle hopes to engage the Caribbean diaspora by emphasizing the intersectionality of two cultures. In essence, this project seeks to impart the need for creativity and constructive reflection on cultural traditions and to explore how communities can reimagine their sacred practices.
M. Florine Démosthène was born in the United States and raised between Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and New York City. Démosthène earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Parsons School of Design and her Master of Fine Arts from Hunter College of the City University of New York. She has exhibited extensively in the United States, the Caribbean, the United Kingdom, Europe, and Africa. Her recent solo shows include What The Body Carries at the Frist Art Museum in Nashville (2025), Mastering The Dream at SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah (2023–24), and In The Realm Of Love at Mariane Ibrahim in Paris (2022). She is a recipient of a New York State Council of the Arts/New York Foundation for the Arts Artist Fellowship, a Wachtmeister Award, a Tulsa Artist Fellowship, an Arts Moves Africa Grant, a Black Star Award, and a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant. She has participated in artist residencies in the United States, the Caribbean, the United Kingdom, Slovakia, South Africa, Ghana, and Tanzania. Her works are on view at the National Museum for African American History and Culture, the Africa First Collection, the University of South Africa (UNISA), the Lowe Art Museum, the Hessel Museum of Art, the PFF Collection of African American Art, and the City of Seattle Washington and in various private collections worldwide.
The 2025 Artist Fellowship is presented in collaboration with Bakehouse Art Complex.
