Willson Center announces Shelter Projects: Micro-Fellowships in the Arts and Humanities

NOTE: The call for proposals ended on April 28, 2020.

The Willson Center accepted more than 100 proposals for Shelter Projects, a micro-fellowship program to support graduate students and community-based artists and practitioners in the creation of shareable reflections on their experience of the current pandemic through the arts and humanities. Thirty-four $500 micro-fellowships were granted through the program.

The Shelter Projects program is a partnership of the Graduate School, the UGA Arts Council, the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, Flagpole magazine, and the Willson Center through the Office of Research.

Shelter Projects represent the responses of fellowship recipients to the experience of their current circumstances. Outcomes may include, but are not limited to

  • a poem
  • a song
  • a journal
  • a short film
  • a sculpture
  • a drawing
  • a painting
  • a set of observations of the natural world
  • some other artistic or humanistic form

The projects must be carried out individually, in self-isolation and adhering to the advice and requirements of both the University System of Georgia and the Centers for Disease Control.

Projects must be available to share online in a rolling virtual exhibition by the Willson Center, which will be broadcast through various university communication channels and Flagpole. This exhibition will be presented as a whole during UGA’s Spotlight on the Arts festival in November, 2020.

Shelter Projects were selected by a committee including representatives of the Willson Center, the Graduate School, and Flagpole.

The Willson Center is a member of the National Humanities Alliance, the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes, and the Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities (a2ru). The University of Georgia is a partner institution of the National Humanities Center.