MacDowell Awards Winter-Spring Fellowships To 87 Artists

The MacDowell Colony has awarded Fellowships to 87 artists from 21 states and seven countries. The incoming Fellows reflect seven artistic disciplines and will arrive from locales as far apart as Poland, Mexico, Belgium, and Israel, as well as Tennesee, Washington, and Minnesota. The Fellowships are for upcoming winter and spring residencies at one of the nation's leading contemporary arts organizations.

Seventy-six percent of the upcoming artists-in-residence are first-time Fellowship awardees at MacDowell, where the mission is to identify and curate both emerging artists as well as provide ongoing support for established art makers.

This group of MacDowell Fellows includes Obie Award-winning playwright Madeleine George, Grammy-nominated jazz composer Mike Holober, Golden Leopard-winning filmmaker Denis Côté, European Book Prize-winning writer Anna Bikont, PEN/Open Book winner Ruth Ellen Kocher, and Lambda Literary Award-winner Charif Shanahan. Also included are architect Cassim Shepard; composer Anna Webber; poets Dennis Nurkse and Brenda Shaughnessy; playwrights C.A. Johnson and Haruna Lee; visual artists Erica Daborn, Erick Alejandro Hernández, and Andy Robert; and literary translator Joyce Zonana.

"At a time where societies feel imperiled and the news cycle endless, providing time and space in a pastoral setting is a vital opportunity for creative spirits to risk and experiment with new ideas," said Executive Director Philip Himberg. "More than ever, the work of MacDowell feels urgent, and our hope is that the plays, novels, music, and visual art that is born, in part, in Peterborough, finds amplication across the globe. Art informs us and transforms us."

These highly competitive fellowships, each with an average value of more than $10,000, were awarded from a pool of 913 applications received by the most recent of MacDowell's three annual deadlines. A panel of distinguished professionals in each discipline selects Fellows based on their talent and vision, as evidenced by a work sample and project description. While at MacDowell, Fellows are provided a private studio and accommodations for a period of up to eight weeks and three meals a day.

According to discipline, incoming Fellows are:

• Architects: Jeffrey Halstead and Cassim Shepard.
• Composers: Alex Dowling, Christopher Goddard, Mike Holober, Jerome Kitzke, John Liberatore, Elizabeth Ogonek, Emma O'Halloran, Steven Takasugi, Anna Webber, and Eric Wubbels.
• Filmmakers: Cooper Battersby, Daniel Chew, Denis Côté, Emily Duke, Micaela Durand, Johan Grimonprez, Sky Hopinka, William E. Jones, Jennifer Reeder, Weichun Shao, Thorsten Trimpop, and Peng Zuqiang.
• Interdisciplinary artists: Pedram Baldari, Leslie Cuyjet, Elena Demyanenko, Benji Hart, Jon Kinzel, Allison Orr, Huimeng Wang, and Tina Fakhrid-Deen.
• Theatre artists: Madeleine George, Khawla Ibraheem, C.A. Johnson, Haruna Lee, Francisco Mendoza, Jay B. Muskett, and Stav Palti Negev.
• Visual artists: Phoebe Adams, Corliss Cavalieri, Lili Chin, Erica Daborn, Rehab El Sadek, Kunlin He, Erick Alejandro Hernández, Ellen Lesperance, Melanie McLain, Andy Robert, and Lynne Woods Turner.
• Poets and Writers: Toby Altman, Jasmine Amussen, Sharon Bandy, Georgina Beaty, Anna Bikont, Marianne Boruch, Gabriella Burnham, Samantha Cohen, Cheryl Collins Isaac, Carina del Valle Schorske, Susana Ferreira, Robert Glick, Kevin Gonzalez, Jacob Guajardo, Camille Guthrie, Jennifer Haigh, Jasmyne Hammonds, Ruth Ellen Kocher, Tracie McMillan, Michael Meyer, Katie Moulton, Sawako Nakayasu, Jennifer Neal, Dennis Nurkse, Abbey Mei Otis, Susan Blackwell Ramsey, Anne Ray, Tanya Rey, Moriel Rothman-Zecher, Raquel Salas Rivera, Nay Saysourinho, Charif Shanahan, Brenda Shaughnessy, Justin Taylor, Wei Tchou, Beth Underdown, and Joyce Zonana.

Fellows make use of uninterrupted time to work and enjoy the rare opportunity for multidisciplinary exchange. Artists with demonstrated financial need are eligible for travel grants and stipends to cover expenses that accrue at home while away at a residency. The MacDowell Colony awards more than 300 fellowships each year. Check our web site for the next application deadline.

By awarding these Fellowships, The MacDowell Colony continues its long-standing mission to nurture the arts by offering creative individuals of the highest talent an inspiring environment in which they can produce enduring works of the imagination. It is a mission that has inspired important contributions to American and world culture for more than a century and has to date earned Fellows 91 Pulitzer Prizes as well as many other accolades.

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