Miami, May 8, 2023 – Miami Dade College (MDC) photography professor Tony Chirinos has been named a recipient of the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship Award for 2023. With this distinction, he joins an elite league of more than 18,000 renowned fellows since 1925.
Prof. Chirinos, an award-winning photographer, was selected from a pool of 2,500 applicants. He is among 171 distinguished scholars, artists and scientists from the U.S. and Canada representing over 48 fields of study to be awarded this year.
“I have never stopped working, and receiving this award encapsulates that my photographic projects are accepted by a very prestigious art institution,” Prof. Chirinos said. “I can’t believe that I am a Guggenheim Fellow. I’m still in awe and on cloud nine.”
A tenured professor of photography at MDC since 2003, Prof. Chirinos has inspired students to look beyond the viewfinder and discover the world beyond. In addition to teaching, he leads the MDC Kendall Campus Photo Club. A Miami-based, documentary-style photographer, his goal as an artist is to produce work that engages the viewer aesthetically and intellectually, moving beyond mere entertainment to that which beckons critical thinking. He earned a master’s degree from Columbia University in 2003, trained as a biomedical photographer at Miami Children’s Hospital (now Nicklaus Children’s Hospital) and has had many accolades to his name, including Fellow of the South Florida Cultural Consortium (2010) and recipient of Center’s Excellence in Teaching Award (2019).
“I am humbled that people and institutions are interested in my work and what I stand for as a photographer,” Prof. Chirinos said. “I teach in an institution that is open access, where every student has a chance to be a great photographer. I am honored to be able to inspire and give the tools necessary for my students to learn on their own. You have to create a safe atmosphere for the students to feel that they can be who they are, and make the photographs that they want. Creating a love for learning is what I strive for.”
About the Guggenheim Foundation
Created and initially funded in 1925 by Senator Simon and Olga Guggenheim in memory of their son John Simon Guggenheim, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has sought since its inception to “further the development of scholars and artists by assisting them to engage in research in any field of knowledge and creation in any of the arts, under the freest possible conditions.”
Since its establishment, the Foundation has granted nearly $400 million in Fellowships to over 18,000 individuals, among whom are more than 125 Nobel laureates, members of all the national academies, winners of the Pulitzer Prize, Fields Medal, Turing Award, Bancroft Prize, National Book Award, and other internationally recognized honors. The great range of fields of study is a unique characteristic of the Fellowship program.