The University's Arts Fellows for 2025 are (clockwise from top left) Carol Brown (The Caroline Plummer Fellowship in Community Dance), Reece King (The Frances Hodgkins Fellow), Samantha Montgomerie (The Otago College of Education Creative New Zealand Children’s Writer in Residence), Simon Eastwood (The Mozart Fellow) and Octavia Cade (The Robert Burns Fellow).
Otago’s Arts Fellows for 2025 have been selected. The Fellows receive a stipend for between six months and one year and space on campus to pursue their creative projects.
Te Kete Aronui - Division of Humanities interim Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Professor Hugh Campbell, says it is a great pleasure and privilege for the Division to host these artists.
“These Fellowships are precious, and we are so grateful to the benefactors who have established and maintained them. The Fellows often marvel at the creative freedom gained through the stability of the Fellowships. Our communities benefit from having these artists here, who all seek to collaborate, connect and enrich.”
There are five Fellows for 2025:
“This is a talented cohort of artists, planning ambitious projects that I am excited to see unfold,” Professor Campbell says.
“I also want to take this opportunity to thank the many people who support these Fellowships. The members of the selection panels who put in a lot of careful consideration, we have kaimahi who host each artist in the School of Performing Arts, College of Education and School of Arts, and our professional support staff make all the logistics happen. We’re also grateful to Hocken Collections, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, the Robert Lord Writers Cottage Trust and the many members of the wider community who offer these Fellows manaakitanga and generous hospitality.”
The Frances Hodgkins Fellowship: Reece King
Reece King is the recipient of the Frances Hodgkins Fellowship for 2025.
This opportunity will build on a decade of development as a painter living and working in Tāmaki Makaurau.
With an exciting and distinctive style, Reece’s bold works continually re-reveal themselves upon longer inspection. He describes his painting as “a method of appreciating and understanding more deeply the human experience and surrounding world rather than communicating a particular sentiment that may have existed before or without painting”.
Reece’s work connects to the deep histories of human mark making. In recent years, his interest in visual approaches in Samoan Siapo has grown and he has been filling the gaps in his knowledge of his Samoan ancestry. He looks forward to the space the Fellowship will provide to further research, absorb, and incorporate this into his practice.
Reece King
On receiving this Fellowship, Reece says, "It is an honour, and I am very grateful for this opportunity. I look forward to being in Dunedin and making heaps of big paintings, who knows what will emerge…"
Reece grew up on the west coast at Te Henga and completed a Masters in Painting at Unitec Te Whare Wānanga o Wairaka in 2021. Last year, he was the inaugural recipient of the Church Rd Art Initiative. His work was included in Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki’s, Aotearoa Contemporary exhibition in July and this year he also had a solo show at Anna Miles Gallery, Tamaki Makaurau, and Gallery 9, Sydney.
In 2020, he was the supreme winner of the New Zealand Painting and Printmaking Award, administered by the Waikato Society of Arts. In 2021, he was awarded the Eden Arts Karekare House Residency. His work is included in public and private collections worldwide, including those of Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki and MTG Hawke’s Bay Tai Ahuriri.
Reece values collaboration and supports other painters to flourish. He’s a founding member of Sanc Gallery a painter-run space in Auckland that held 22 exhibitions from when it was founded in 2020 until it was repurposed as a studio in 2023. During his Fellowship, Reece intends to organise collaborative exhibitions with Ōtepoti artists and students.
With an enthusiasm for bringing artists and communities together, Reece says he’s looking forward to immersing himself in the “vibrant social, historical and geographic environment of the creative communities of Ōtepoti”.
Reece says, “The studio door will be open to anyone interested in seeing what I’m up to and having a chat".
The Caroline Plummer Community Dance Fellow: Dr Carol Brown
Dr Carol Brown is a renowned dancer, choreographer and artistic researcher based in Melbourne, Australia on the sovereign lands of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong Boon Wurrung Peoples of the Eastern Kulin Nation.
She is at the forefront of pedagogy and choreographic research in site-specific dance with 40 years of engagement in environmental dance performance.
Dr Carol Brown
Her residency project will mark a return home for Carol, who was born and raised in South Dunedin within walking distance to St Clair beach, where she was a member of the surf life-saving club.
“I continue to be in awe of the wild surf that pounds the beach behind my mother’s home on Victoria Road, St Clair and swim there whenever I return. It brings me enormous joy, always has done,” Carol says.
Carol learnt about the power of dance to transform sensory experiences into artistic practice through her teacher, the late Shona Dunlop-MacTavish MBE, and performances with Dunedin Dance Theatre.
Her six-month residency project Saltlines for Sealion Women is a community dance work centred on recovery, safety and kinship. The title pays homage to the 1939 recording of Sea Lion Woman sung by the African American Shipp Sisters from Missouri. Underscoring the project is the image of salt lines as the thread that links the ebb and flow of the tide with the monitoring of changes in sea levels.
Through the project, Carol will engage local community in dance storying inspired by the recolonisation of Otago’s coastline by pakake – one of the rarest and most endangered sealions in the world.
Another strand to the project is how women broke through barriers to be accepted as lifeguards and surfers with equal rights to the waves. The project will ask what it takes to be ‘safe and brave’ in these contexts and how might an understanding of guardianship in relation to beach safety be expanded to embrace the local sea life.
The project is intended to be accessible to all and will ask participants to define what is important for the creation of their safe space and how they practice bravery daily.
“Dance takes place in the flux of the now but draws deeply upon all that has gone before. The Fellowship comes at the right time for me to return to Ōtepoti and re-engage with the place and local communities who have given so much to my own journey as a dancer.”
An Otago alumna with a BA First Class Honours in History, Carol went on to achieve one of the first practice-led PhDs in Dance at the University of Surrey, UK, with the support of a University of Otago Vice-Chancellor’s Scholarship.
Following her doctorate she was the first woman invited to be Choreographer in Residence at the renowned Palace Theatre London. There she developed her company, Carol Brown Dances with Dunedin born composer Russell Scoones. Touring internationally with the British Council and engaging in sustained collaborations, Carol has developed choreographic methodologies in dance-architecture, digital dance and place-based dance and has written extensively about this work in books and academic journals.
She has previously been a tutor in Dance at Otago’s School of Physical Education (1990-91); a lecturer in Dance and Choreography at the University of Surrey; visiting lecturer in Dance and Politics at the University of Brighton; Reader in Choreography at Roehampton University; Associate Professor in Dance and Director of Choreographic Research Aotearoa at The University of Auckland. Currently, Carol is Professor of Choreography and Head of Dance at Victoria College of the Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, University of Melbourne.
The College of Education Creative New Zealand Children’s Writer in Residence: Samantha Montgomerie
Samantha Montgomerie lives on the Otago Peninsula, Ōtepoti Dunedin.
Her proposed project during this Fellowship is a middle-grade (ages 8 to 12 years) fiction novel - Sea and Sky Collide.
Set in the Marlborough Sounds, this action-packed story is based around two young people fighting to take a stand to protect our natural taonga, with a focus on the Hector’s dolphin.
Samantha Montgomerie
It will be an engaging book, showing readers they are never too young to stand up for what they believe in.
“The topical issues of a planet in crisis, families struggling with mental health issues, and learning to accept change when it is thrust on us will resonate with modern children,” says Samantha.
“Our tamariki live in an age where our planet is in crisis. As an educator of young people, I know this causes many of them to feel a sense of powerlessness in how to respond. It is timely that an engaging middle grade novel, centred around the tamariki of Aotearoa, addresses these issues and reflects their own reality.”
Samantha is an award-winning writer, who has published a large volume of diverse work, including fiction, non-fiction, educational readers, emergent chapter books and poetry.
"I am extremely grateful to be awarded this fellowship. Having the space, time and resources to focus on this project is a real gift. It will be an absolute joy and privilege to focus solely on my writing and is validating as a writer."
As well as the time and space to write, this residency will allow Samantha access to University resources, including connecting with academics who are world leaders in the research of Hector’s dolphins.
Already an active member of the Dunedin and national literary community, Samantha says she will enjoy taking up the mantle of responsibility that comes with this residency and will be an eager ambassador of children’s literature and the University’s role within the UNESCO City of Literature.
Website: www.samanthamontgomerie.com
The Robert Burns Fellow: Dr Octavia Cade
Dr Octavia Cade is a New Zealand writer based in Kerikeri.
Her creative work is increasingly climate-influenced, realistic science fiction that takes place in contemporary or near-future settings.
Dr Octavia Cade
Octavia’s background includes a Master’s in Biology, during which she studied seagrass reproduction, a Bachelor of Science in Botany and a PhD in Science Communication from Otago, completed in 2015.
“I’m fascinated by how science fiction talks about science,” Octavia says.
Octavia will work on two related projects as the Robert Burns Fellow. The first is a science fiction novel focused on the Otago Peninsula, after warming oceans and nitrate run-off result in toxic algal blooms that devastate coastal environments.
“I spent a year researching intertidal seaweed at the Portobello marine lab while studying botany at Otago. I’ve written short stories set at that lab before, so the opportunity to write a novel in the same setting is irresistible.”
Her second intended project is a short monograph on how the theme of ecological invasion has underpinned much of New Zealand’s speculative fiction.
“I’ve always been a fan of fantasy and science fiction. We produce a lot of it in this country, and so much of it engages with introduced species and the impacts they have on the environment.”
As someone who writes award-winning climate fiction and writes academically about speculative fiction - with approximately thirty academic papers or chapters to her credit - Octavia is well placed to produce a compelling dual narrative.
“I’m thrilled to be given the opportunity to write a novel, of course, but one of the most exciting things about the Robert Burns Fellowship, for me, is being able to talk up so many other NZ speculative writers, because they’ve had such an influence on my work.”
This hybrid academic/creative approach is a chance to promote accessibility in science and science fiction.
“The gap between humanities and the sciences does no one any favours, so having the time, space, and support to help stitch that gap a little closer together will be invaluable for my own artistic development.”
Last year, Octavia was the Ursula Bethell writer in residence at the University of Canterbury, working on a collection of creative nonfiction about NZ ecology. In 2021, she had a Michael King residency and in 2020 she received both the Christchurch Arts Centre Residency and was the Massey University/Square Edge Artist in Residence.
Funded by a grant from Creative New Zealand, Octavia has recently completed a magical realist novel centred on the aftermath of the Rainbow Warrior bombing.
Her short novels include The Stone Wētā, which a review in the Landfall journal described as “layering of meaning explored through a feminist perspective of science”. The Impossible Resurrection of Grief was described in The Spinoff Book Report as “uncanny, unsettling, brilliant”.
The Mozart Fellow: Simon Eastwood
Composer, musician and music educator Dr Simon Eastwood is the current 2024 Mozart Fellow, and the University is pleased to award him the Fellowship for another year.
“I have enjoyed my time in Ōtepoti thus far, exploring the musical vibrancy of the city and its people.
“I have also enjoyed being in contact with the other fellows. It is a pleasure to join a cohort of friendly and creative minds such as this,” Simon says.
Dr Simon Eastwood
This has led to wonderful opportunities for collaboration, including a performance installation with Caroline Plumber Fellow in Community Dance Marcela Giesche at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery.
As a composer, Simon has achieved a high level of international success, composing and working with renowned soloists and groups in the UK, USA, Europe and Australia.
This year, Simon has written a soundtrack for an art piece by Lisa Munnelly which was shown in Leeds in June. He has also been composing material for a piano trio and a set of percussion pieces and is looking forward to starting new projects in 2025, including a new work for orchestra.
Simon is also an accomplished musician, primarily a bass player. While his formal training is in classical music, he has very diverse musical interests and he frequently performs in rock and folk groups, chamber ensembles, orchestras and as an improvising musician. This year, he’s played jazz at Inch Bar with Will Martin and jammed with players from Strork, Alan Starrat’s improvising orchestra, alongside dancers brought together by Alison East.
The stability and flexibility of the Fellowship in 2024 has enabled Simon to take up opportunities, including stepping in at late notice to produce some of the arrangements and conduct a three-hour operatic performance ‘The OGs’ for the Auckland Arts Festival in March. This saw him work with some of the biggest stars in New Zealand Opera on a successful show that played to an audience of thousands.
Interdisciplinary collaboration is a core feature of Simon’s practice. With the renewal of his Fellowship, he will pursue further collaborative projects and continue to develop his musical relationships in Dunedin.