Initiated in 2021, our Research Fellowship Program encourages new research on the work, ideas, and creative legacies of Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson.

Our Fellowship Program is open to graduate students, recent college graduates, doctoral and post-doctoral researchers, artists, early career museum professionals, and Holt and Smithson scholars working towards a specific publication, exhibition, or project.

We will announce details of the next call for applications here on our website, on our social media channels, and in our newsletters. 

person reading a book titled "franjo" while resting the book on their knees.
Nancy Holt working on Star Crossed

Annie Dell'Aria

Annie Dell'Aria's project constructs a full narrative of Nancy Holt's Star-Crossed (1979-80), intersecting with the bureaucratic hurdles and institutional aspirations of a new museum commissioning work on a public university campus, inspiration from Indigenous earthworks of the Miami people, and practical and material challenges to realization and preservation.
a structure built of galvanized steel pipes built in a grassy field

Grace Storey

Grace Storey will compile a comprehensive exhibition history for Nancy Holt, from 1969–present. This research project will contribute towards Holt's catalogue raisonné.
a graphic depicting Jose Luis Arroyo-Robles project

José Luis Arroyo-Robles

José Luis Arroyo-Robles project focuses on drawing the speculative route that Nancy Holt, Robert Smithson, and Virginia Dwan may have followed during their journey in the south of Mexico in 1969.
Nancy Holt on Dartmoor

Joy Sleeman

Joy Sleeman's research revisits Holt’s and Smithson’s travels in England and Wales between August 20 and September 30, 1969; places where they spent time, took photographs, and made other forms of art.
two figures walking through a sand quarry

Rory O'Dea

Rory O'Dea's Research Fellowship focuses on Robert Smithson and Nancy Holt's time and work in the Pine Barrens, NJ.
A drawing of Lake Edge Crescents by Robert Smithson

Margo Handwerker

Margo Handwerker's Research Fellowship expands on her doctoral dissertation “Art/Work: The Systems-Oriented Artist Expert, 1968–1984” by focusing on Robert Smithson’s 1972 proposal for Lake Edge Crescents in Ohio.
six circular pools of water embedded along the shoreline of a river

Scout Hutchinson

Scout’s Hutchinson's Research Fellowship expands on her Master’s thesis “Occupying Space: Land Art and the Red Power Movement, c. 1965–78,” focusing on Nancy Holt’s 1974 work Hydra’s Head.
a large lump of asphalt and a small collection of flight arranged on a white pedastal

Markus Karstieß and Eva Schmidt

Markus Karstieß and Eva Schmidt collaborated on a Research Fellowship focused on Robert Smithson’s 1968 work Asphalt Lump and his related work made in the Rhine-Ruhr region of Germany in 1968/1969. The research included site visits and research on Smithson's exhibition practice, for example for Mirror Displacement: Indoors (formerly referred to as Dead Tree) in the exhibition Prospect 69.
a city park with green grass and red tile channels cut into the lawn with a large metal structure over a large drain

Paige Hirschey

Paige Hirschey's Research Fellowship focuses on Nancy Holt’s 1982 work Catch Basin and related System Works.
a collaged image of burial mounds with a floating abstract shape

Ali Ismail Karimi

Ali Ismail Karimi’s research focuses on Robert Smithson’s 1966 works Grave Mounds with Object and Proposal for a Monument on the Red Sea and the relationship of Smithson’s work to the landscapes of the Middle East.
a figure wearing all black and medium length gray hair is seated and faces the camera with a lake at sunset in the background

Hikmet Sidney Loe

Hikmet Sidney Loe’s Fellowship reviews Nancy Holt’s Library: a collection spanning topics as varied as art, astronomy, film, geology, geography, New Mexico history, and spirituality. Following this research, the annotated volumes will join the Robert Smithson and Nancy Holt Papers held at the Archives of American Art.