Applications for the 2025 New City Arts Fellowship are now open and due February 3, 2025 at 11:59PM. Learn more and apply below.
About the Fellowship
The New City Arts Fellowship creates space, time, and financial support for Charlottesville-area artists to make work in response to an annual open call and proposal theme. This year, the New City Arts Fellowship studio space will be located at Visible Records, an artist-run studio and gallery space in the Woolen Mills neighborhood in Charlottesville, Virginia. Each artist receives a month-long studio space grant, a $500 stipend, and a stocked pantry with their favorite drinks and snacks. The Fellowship season (March 2025 - July 2025) culminates in a group exhibition at Welcome Gallery in September 2025.
Fellows can expect to work with each other, 2024 Fellowship Guest Curator, Eboni Bugg, and Welcome Gallery Manager, Tori Cherry, through group discussions and other creative gatherings to help orient the cohort and individual engagement with the theme as Fellows prepare for their group exhibition in September 2025.
Four fellowship artists will be selected by a community panel. Selection committee members for the Fellowship will be announced soon. Learn more about past Fellowships and Artist Fellows here.
2025 Fellowship Theme: through this, to that
New City Arts invited 2024 Artist Fellow, Eboni Bugg, to write this year’s Fellowship theme.
Inspired by water’s movement, Eboni Bugg invites prospective fellows to consider their own movement “through this, to that” (as written by Lucille Clifton in her poem blessing the boats). Proposals should creatively engage with the theme, but are not required to be explicitly tied to the idea of water. Each submitted proposal should also include a brief description of how the work will be presented in an exhibition at Welcome Gallery in September 2025. Read the Fellowship theme and more about the program below:
through this, to that by Eboni Bugg
Water has been described as mother, matrix, and medium. It is our first home and our constant teacher. We are the miracle that exists because of its capacity to nourish and to heal. Its ebbs and flows remind us that change is inevitable and its surface holds a mirror to the truth of who we are. For many, water is a haven and the only container large enough to hold the accumulated weight of living. There is a reason water shapes our most sacred rites - it is the substrate of our tears and a source of deep solace.
And yet, for the first time in discernible history, human activity has altered the balance of how water flows on our planet. This continuous movement of moisture on, above, and below the earth’s surface connects every living thing and stretches across borders to link communities and nations. To be alive now is to know that any just and imaginable future depends on our capacity to move beyond our usual paths of comprehension toward new ways of being. It isn’t simply survival at stake, but the essence of how we orient ourselves to our bodies, relationships, and the natural world of which we are a part.
New City Arts invites artists of all mediums, practices, and ways of knowing to meet at the shore of our dawning awareness to contemplate how we move “through this to that.” I ask: Where are we going? What are the vessels and conveyances that will transport us? How will we know when we arrive? Taking cues from the movement of water, fellows are encouraged to reimagine and reinterpret the processes of evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and sublimation as embodied acts of radical transformation.
Read the Lucille Clifton poem, “blessing the boats,” here.
Fellowship Requirements
Given that the core of our mission is to foster engagement with the arts in Charlottesville, Virginia, we ask that Artist Fellows:
Live in the Charlottesville-area (including the city of Charlottesville or Albemarle, Fluvanna, Greene, Louisa, Buckingham, Orange, and Nelson counties) for the duration of the Fellowship
Spend a minimum of 5-10 hours per week in the studio
Participate in a Fellowship group show in September 2025
Fellowship artists must be available to occupy a studio space in-person for a duration of 4 weeks during the Fellowship period (March - July 2025) and in late August 2025 for the installation of the September 2025 Fellowship exhibition at Welcome Gallery.
Artists are asked to consider whether the content of their proposal aligns with New City Arts’ Mission, Vision, and Values as well as our Content Guidelines. If you are uncertain whether your proposal does this, please reach out. Staff is available to discuss your proposal with you prior to submitting your application.
Alumni who have participated in the Fellowship program within the last 3 years are not eligible to apply.
Artists are welcome to apply for both the Fellowship and Charlottesville SOUP (applications are open now), but must apply with a different project in mind for each.
Please note: Any project proposal that seeks to discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, sexual orientation, disability, or any other reason will not be considered.
Key Dates
Free Application Assistance Workshop (pizza provided!): Thursday, January 26, 2025 from 5:30 - 6:30PM (RSVP here!)
Application Deadline: Monday, February 3, 2025 by 11:59PM
Fellowship Season: March - July 2025
Fellowship Exhibition: September 2025
Final decisions for the 2025 New City Arts Fellowship will be released in early March 2025.
About the Space
Fellowship artists are provided with a free Visible Records studio (130 sq. ft.) with wall space for displaying works in progress as well as a shared kitchenette, common area, and bathroom. Artist Fellows may book the common area for events or use the common area to work in on a day-by-day basis when available. During their use of the studio, Fellows also get free access to any public ticketed events at Visible Records. Read more about the Visible Records studio space below:
Visible Records is located at 1740 Broadway St. in the Woolen Mills neighborhood of Charlottesville, VA. Please note that Visible Records is a non-toxic studio space and artists should refrain from using solvents and hazardous materials in the space. The facility is a public, communal space shared with other local artists giving Artist Fellows the opportunity to work among the local arts community. Each studio at Visible Records has a half door (see photo below). For more privacy, artists may put up a curtain rod and curtain over the open part of the studio entrance.
The studio includes a long work table, a wooden shelf, a trash can, and a chair. The entrance to the Visible Records building is ADA-accessible and can be accessed via ramp. The bathroom is located in the back of the building and is ADA-accessible as well.
How to Apply
Applications for the New City Arts Fellowship are due February 3, 2025 by 11:59PM.
Applicants are asked to fill out an online submission form via Google Forms where they will submit 2-3 artwork samples relevant to their project proposal according to the following guidelines:
IMAGES — JPEG file(s) up to 2MB each.
VIDEO or AUDIO — submit a PDF with link(s) to YouTube, Vimeo, or Soundcloud. MP3 files up to 3MB each are also acceptable for audio samples. Video and audio submissions must not exceed 3 minutes. If the sample exceeds 3 minutes, please note an up to 3-minute segment of the sample for review (i.e., minute 1:45-4:45)
TEXT — PDF files; total amount of words for all samples must not exceed 1800 words. For example, you could submit 3 samples of up to 600 words each. Alternatively, you could submit 1 sample that is up to 1200 words and another that is up to 600 words (if you only wanted to submit 2).
You may submit any combination of media types. All uploaded work sample files should be labeled according to the following format: FirstNameLastName_Title (ex: ToriCherry_Masterpiece).
Past Fellowships
Learn more about the New City Artist Fellowship, explore past themes, and meet previous Artist Fellows.