Welcome to the University of Otago's Arts Fellowships pages
Our long-standing and prestigious Arts Fellowships offer five talented artists the freedom, space and time to explore their creativity without financial constraints.
Otago Fellowships are considered the premier fellowships in New Zealand and are highly sought after by artists, composers, dancers and writers.
Applications for 2024 are now open.
About the Otago Fellowships
In his editorial notes for the quarterly Landfall in March 1959, Charles Brasch argued that 'part of a university's proper business is to act as nurse to the arts, or, more exactly, to the imagination as it expresses itself in the arts and sciences. Imagination may flourish anywhere. But it should flourish as a matter of course in the university, for it is only through imaginative thinking that society grows, materially and intellectually.'
At the University of Otago we believe that our writers, artists, composers, musicians and dancers have a vital role to play in the health and well-being of our community - not just the University community or the Dunedin community, but the wider community of New Zealand. We look to them to offer us visions we cannot make ourselves; we rely on their craft to generate the experiences which will challenge us, entertain us, provoke and reassure us, and tell us who we are.
Otago Fellows for 2023
The University of Otago 2023 Arts Fellows (clockwise from top left) Kathryn van Beek, Ruth Paul, Daisy Sanders, Emily Hartley-Skudder and Sean Donnelly.
- Kathryn van Beek, Robert Burns Fellow
- Sean Donnelly, Mozart Fellow
- Emily Hartley-Skudder, Frances Hodgkins Fellow
- Ruth Paul, University of Otago College of Education Creative New Zealand Children’s Writer in Residence Fellow
- Daisy Sanders, Caroline Plummer Fellow in Community Dance
The Otago Fellowships
- The Robert Burns Fellowship
- The Mozart Fellowship
- The Frances Hodgkins Fellowship
- The University of Otago College of Education/Creative New Zealand Children's Writer in Residence
- The Caroline Plummer Fellowship in Community Dance