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Otago Fellows

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

photo collage of the University of Otago 2023 Arts Fellows (clockwise from top left) Kathryn van Beek, Ruth Paul, Daisy Sanders, Emily Hartley-Skudder and Sean Donnelly.The University of Otago 2023 Arts Fellows (clockwise from top left) Kathryn van Beek, Ruth Paul, Daisy Sanders, Emily Hartley-Skudder and Sean Donnelly.

The Otago Fellowships

Applications for the Fellowships

More information, key dates and application forms