Visual Artist Christina Seely Named 2023 Guggenheim Fellow

Dartmouth faculty member Christina Seely, an associate professor of studio art, is among the 2023 Guggenheim Fellows recently named by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. 

This year, the foundation awarded 171 fellowships to American and Canadian scientists, scholars in the social sciences and humanities, and writers and artists selected from a pool of nearly 2,500 applicants. The fellows were appointed on the basis of prior achievement and exceptional promise.

"Like Emerson, I believe that fullness in life comes from following our calling," said Edward Hirsch, president of the Guggenheim Foundation "The new class of fellows has followed their calling to enhance all of our lives, to provide greater human knowledge and deeper understanding. We're lucky to look to them to bring us into the future."

Seely, whose fellowship is in the field of photography, is a visual artist whose multidisciplinary photographic practice stretches into the fields of science, design, sound, and architecture. She has a broad national and international exhibition record and is featured in many public and private collections, including the Museum of Contemporary Photography, the West Collection, and the Walker Art Center. 

"Christina's innovative and multidisciplinary approach pushes traditional boundaries and challenges viewers to see and understand the world in new ways," says Samuel Levey, associate dean for the Arts and Humanities. "I'm thrilled that the Guggenheim Foundation has recognized her groundbreaking and important work."

Seely is currently completing a self-designed master's program in theological studies at Harvard Divinity School. Her course of study considers contemporary art as "a space of spiritual holding in conversation with science" as a way to communicate more effectively about the climate crisis. 

"The Guggenheim will not only give me the time and support I need to metabolize and apply what I've learned through this degree, but it will amplify the power a rigorous contemporary art practice has as an agent in building new ways of perceiving and moving through these difficult times," Seely says.

Among her many honors, Seely received a 2014 Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, a 2017 John Gutmann Photography Fellowship, and a 2020 Environmental Humanities Fellowship. Her first monograph, Lux, was co-published in 2015 by Radius Books and the Museum of Contemporary Photography.

Since its establishment in 1925, the Guggenheim Foundation has granted nearly $400 million to over 18,000 individuals, among whom are more than 125 Nobel laureates, members of all the national academies and recipients of many internationally recognized honors.