Congratulations to this year’s recipients of the Dean’s International Research Grant! This grant program supports independent travel and exploration that informs a student’s research and provides an experience related to their creative or intellectual trajectory. Each year, up to 10 grants of $2,500 are awarded.
2022 Grant Recipients
EB Fox
Photo + Film
EB will travel to the port city of Rotterdam, Netherlands to film a short documentary about the major land reclamation project happening on the Dutch coast. Since the early 1800s, the Dutch have been working to reclaim land from the North Sea using a technique called poldering. She will spend 10 days in early September studying the environmental impacts of this project and the large-scale fight against climate change. The findings from the Netherlands will then be juxtaposed with that of Tangier, an island off Virginia’s Eastern shore that is being completely overtaken by the bay.
Lillian Hobart
Photo + Film
Lillian will be traveling to Ballyvaughan, Ireland to attend the Burren College of Art Artist Residency program in mid July. She will explore the glacio karst landscape of the Burren, focusing specifically on the distinct geological formations caused by the glaciation of Ireland over 20,000 years ago. Lillian will create a series of photographs communicating her research findings, depicting the necessity of a human relationship to deep time and the importance of glacial landscapes to the health of our planet. She will be able to establish an independent studio practice and have round the clock darkroom and studio space.
Barrett Reynolds
Photo + Film
From July 1st to July 8th, Barrett Reynolds and Jack Fox will travel to Nova Scotia, Canada to create a photography series combining documentary and narrative storytelling portraying the excessive amounts of shipwrecks the area experiences due to heavy fog. Through photographing local townspeople, native wildlife species, and exploring sailor’s tall tales surrounding shipwrecks, they will create a series that captures speculations surrounding the abnormal occurrences in the province. This opportunity will allow Barrett and Jack to explore how Nova Scotia’s peculiar environment shapes the collective identity of its inhabitants.
Elise Wojtowicz
Art Education
Elise will travel to Ireland in late May to investigate bog, where she will create a series of sculptural photographs in collaboration with this unique and essential environment, completing an ongoing body of work centering this landscape. The project engages with the mystical and macabre qualities of boglands from an feminist perspective, while revealing their environmental necessity in an age of climate decay.
VCUarts offers a range of grant programs designed to help you bring your ideas to fruition, put your education into context through an internship, or explore the arts and culture around the world. Click here to learn more about grant opportunities at VCUarts.