The Vilcek Foundation announces the awarding of $250,000 in prizes to immigrant curators with the 2025 Vilcek Foundation Prizes in Curatorial Work. The prizes are bestowed as part of the Vilcek Foundation Prizes program. Since 2006, the foundation has awarded prizes annually in biomedical science and in a rotating category in the arts and humanities. In 2025, the foundation has expanded its awards in the arts and humanities, awarding prizes in two categories: Visual Arts and Curatorial Work. 

The curatorial category is a new addition to the foundation’s prize program, totaling four prizes: one Vilcek Prize and three smaller Vilcek Prizes for Creative Promise. The Vilcek Foundation Prizes in Curatorial Work are bestowed on immigrant curators who are living and working in the United States and have developed important exhibitions for museums, galleries, art fairs, or nonprofit organizations.

The 2025 Vilcek Foundation Prizes in Curatorial Work are awarded to:

• Oluremi C. Onabanjo (b. United Kingdom)
• Donna Honarpisheh (b. Canada)
• Aimé Iglesias Lukin (b. Argentina)
• Bernardo Mosqueira (b. Brazil)

The Vilcek Prize in Curatorial Work

The Vilcek Prize in Curatorial Work is awarded to a curator whose work has had a profound impact on contemporary discourse on art, art history, and the role of museums and institutions to advance the canon. The winner of the Vilcek Prize receives a cash award of $100,000 and a commemorative trophy. The foundation is proud to bestow the 2025 Vilcek Prize in Curatorial Work on Oluremi C. Onabanjo.

Oluremi Onabanjo

Oluremi C. Onabanjo is the Peter Schub Curator  in the Robert B. Menschel Department of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York. She receives the Vilcek Prize in Curatorial Work for her work to examine the power, position, and production of Blackness in relation to the ongoing global history of the photographic medium. Born in the United Kingdom, she is an alumna of Oxford University and Columbia University.

The Vilcek Prizes for Creative Promise in Curatorial Work

The Vilcek Prizes for Creative Promise in Curatorial Work are awarded to young immigrant curators whose work is redefining the role of curators and institutions to support equity in the arts. Each of the three 2025 prizewinners has developed exhibitions that center and uplift artists and movements that have gone woefully underrepresented in Western art history. Prizewinners each receive a commemorative trophy and a cash award of $50,000. The Vilcek Foundation is delighted to award the 2025 Vilcek Prizes for Creative Promise in Curatorial Work to Donna Honarpisheh, Aimé Iglesias Lukin, and Bernardo Mosqueira.

Donna Honarpisheh

Donna Honarpisheh receives the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Curatorial Work for her multidisciplinary approach to address the historic and ongoing omissions of global artists and movements in Western art history and institutions. Born in Canada to Iranian immigrants, Honarpisheh is the Knight Foundation Associate Curator of Art and Research at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Miami, and a PhD candidate at the University of California, Berkeley. 

Aimé Iglesias Lukin

Aimé Iglesias Lukin receives the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Curatorial Work for her leadership promoting the art of the Americas, and her focused initiatives to achieve recognition for historically underrepresented migrant and women artists. Born in Argentina, Lukin is director and chief curator of art at the Americas Society. She holds an MA in Art History and Archaeology from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and a PhD from Rutgers University.

Bernardo Mosqueira

Bernardo Mosqueira receives the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Curatorial Work for his commitment to building institutions, frameworks, and platforms for emerging and radical artists, especially those from the Global South, Latin America, and diasporic communities. Born in Brazil, he is chief curator of the Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA) in New York; and artistic director of Solar dos Abacaxis in Rio de Janeiro.