Arts Collaborative Mini Grants support new creative interdisciplinary projects with mentorship and funding. Congratulations to the new mini grant recipients!
To learn more about the Mini Grant program, visit https://ugaartscollaborative.com/arts-collaborative-mini-grants/
Insect Zoo Mural Collaboration
The UGA Entomology department is teaming up with students from the Scientific Illustration program to create installations as part of the newly renovated Insect Zoo. This project seeks to connect the skills of scientific illustrators with the knowledge of entomologists to create a dynamic space that helps to educate and inspire visitors from as diverse of backgrounds as the bugs that are modeled.
Project participants
Kelly Carruthers, Entomology
Amanda Manowski, Art
Malcolm Peavy, Entomology
Seraphina Edwards, Art
Kayla Schlueter, Art
Mariah Yori, Art
Reclaiming Trees
This interdisciplinary project proposes to repurpose downed and salvage trees from UGA’s campus into usable wood products for students, faculty, community stakeholders to fostering sustainable practices and creative innovation. Currently, large woody debris is tub-ground for mulch, a process that emits greenhouse gases and forfeits the opportunity to create high-value products. By redirecting this material into furniture-making, sculpture, and other art projects, we advance UGA’s Zero Waste UGA (ZWUGA) initiative and reduce emissions associated with grinding and purchasing commercial lumber.
Project participants
Jon Calabria, College of Environment + Design
Mickey Boyd, Art
Joe Dahlen, Warnell School of Forestry
Lili Cai, Warnell School of Forestry
Chris Peterson, Plant Biology
Dave Long, Warnell School of Forestry
Cam Bergland, College of Environment + Design
Royce Dingley, Grounds Department
Digital Diaspora
The project will explore the intersection of AI and live performance through a piece for the Wind Symphony that utilizes AI. With AI quickly becoming part of the conversation in music, this project brings that energy into the band world in a creative way. The piece will be approximately 7–8 minutes long and will incorporate audience interaction.
Project participants
Jack Eaddy, Music
Alvin Crews, Enterprise Information Technology Services
Marie Douglas, composer
Sound, Music, and the Environment: Mapping Acoustic Ecologies in Athens
This project develops acoustic recordings as rich interdisciplinary resources that generate knowledge across scientific, humanistic, and creative fields. Athens-Clarke County’s soundscapes become data for ecological analysis, source material for musical composition, and baseline documentation for tracking environmental change.
Project participants
Jared Holton, Music
Peter Van Zandt Lane, Music
James A. Owen, Institute of Native American Studies
Allison Injaian, Ecology
Free Rein: A neuroscientific examination of creative brains interacting in real time through hyperscanning during musical concert performances
Free Rein is a collaboration between expert faculty from across five institutions representing the disciplines of neuroscience, biomedical engineering, music, dance, and digital art, where the goal of the project is to investigate the neural dynamics of musical and kinesthetic creativity in a real-world setting. Brain data will be gathered at rehearsals and nine live performances, making this the most extensive longitudinal neuroimaging study of creativity ever conducted that involves hyperscanning, which is a neuroscientific technique featuring the simultaneous recording of the brain activity of two or more interacting people.
Project participants
Tyson Jordan, Psychology
Anna Abraham, Torrance Center
Anthony Brandt, Rice University
Andrew Nordin, University of Houston
Badie Khaleghian, Bowdoin College
Art, Philosophy, and Awkwardness
This project proposes to explore awkwardness, especially the aesthetic and artistic dimensions of awkwardness, through a collaborative and creative research process involving a dialogue between philosophy, social psychology, and dance.
Project participants
Aaron Meskin, Philosophy
Rebecca Gose, Dance
Candy Beers, Human Development and Family Science
Maryn Whitmore, Athens community