Antebi receives prestigious MacDowell Fellowship

By Michael Chesnick. March 6, 2026

School of Art Assistant Professor Nicole Antebi has been awarded a prestigious MacDowell Fellowship to work on an animated essay that will explore “the hug” — both visually and textually as a gesture that “is as complex as it is political,” she said.

Antebi is among 135 artists across seven disciplines chosen from a pool of over 2,600 applicants for the spring/summer 2026 season at MacDowell — the nation’s first artist residency program, founded in 1907. She’ll be working on her project March 16-30 at its historic campus in Peterborough, New Hampshire.

“I’m really looking forward to this opportunity,” said Antebi, part of the school’s Illustration, Design & Animation program. “The project I will be working on … will focus on four consequential hugs that took place in El Paso, Texas, from 2019 to 2025, which demonstrate the restorative love of a border city perpetually traumatized by federal policies.”

Context for her animated essay, she said, will begin with the dismantling of “Hugs not Walls,” a Border Network for Human Rights initiative that began in 2016 that let families who could not visit each other because of their immigration status to meet in the middle of the Rio Grande (Rio Bravo) River once a month to embrace.

Nicole Antebi wrote and animated an Oct. 7, 2024, essay for The Texas Observer “Reclaiming Friendship across borders.”

Makeshift platforms on the river allowed families wearing different T-shirts — one color for those on the U.S. side and another for those in Mexico — to hug without fear of deportation or any other repercussions. The events were hosted in partnership with the Border Patrol, the International Boundary and Water Commission and the El Paso and Juárez police departments. The initiative was cancelled May 10, 2025, on Mexican Mother’s Day, because the Trump administration had designated a second stretch of the border as a National Defense Area to enforce immigration laws, according to news reports.

Sama Alshaibi, a Regents professor from the University of Arizona School of Art, was awarded a MacDowell Fellowship last year.

Also offering a fall/winter season, MacDowell hosts 300 fellows annually from around the world, including architects, composers, filmmakers, interdisciplinary artists, theater artists, visual artists and writers.

Antebi and others “will be granted the gift of uninterrupted focus,” supported by a private studio, accommodations and three prepared meals each day, according to the residency’s website, macdowell.org.

“MacDowell is a safe haven for artists from around the world,” said Courtney Bethel, the program’s admissions director. “In the current political climate, it’s especially meaningful to create opportunities for artists to build connections and foster community at both the national and global levels.”

In 2025, Antebi was named an Early Career Scholar Award recipient by the University of Arizona for her cross-cultural work that centers on animation as a form of community-engaged storytelling. She is co-director of the Wonder Studio at Biosphere 2, which serves as an animation, data visualization and film production laboratory dedicated to developing solutions for environmental change.

“Nicole is an amazing teacher who encourages her students to build better communities through storytelling, animation and collaboration,” said Professor Kelly Leslie, who chairs the School of Art’s Illustration, Design and Animation program.

For this year’s Spring Summer session, MacDowell received applications from artists in all 50 U.S. states along with Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, and 71 countries. Accepted artists represent 27 states, 16 countries and five continents.

Founded by composer Edward MacDowell and pianist Marian MacDowell, the MacDowell program was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1997. Over the past 119 years, more than 16,500 residencies have been awarded to distinguished artists such as James Baldwin, Charlie Kaufman, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Louise Erdrich, Suzan-Lori Parks, Ayad Akhtar, Laura Poitras, Faith Ringgold, Meredith Monk, Osvaldo Golijov, Sam Grabiner, Ersela Kripa, Alyson Shotz, Maya Ciarrocchi, and jaamil olawale kosoko.

“I am once again in awe of the remarkable talent arriving on our grounds this spring and summer,” said Chiwoniso Kaitano, MacDowell’s executive director. “Representing … an extraordinary breadth of ideas, these artists — at every stage of their careers—are true groundbreakers. It is a deep honor for MacDowell to play even a small role in the impact our Fellows have on art and culture.”