Terry Adkins is Awarded the Rome Prize! Congratulations!

Sculpture Professor Terry Adkins has been awarded the prestigious 2009 Rome Prize in visual arts. Terry is among 25 visual artists and scholars who will spend a year working at the American Academy in Rome.

Terry's proposed project, Flumen Orationis, Latin for River of Speech, will highlight African influence in Rome. Three early popes came from North Africa. “In my work, I try to pick historically transformative figures who are little known,” Adkins said. “In Rome, I want to bring to light their presence there and revisit their legacy. “

The American Academy in Rome was established in 1894. The Rome Prize is awarded to artists and scholars through a national competition. Rome Prize fellowships are designed for emerging artists and for scholars in the early or middle stages of their careers. Fellowship winners come to Rome to refine and expand their own professional, artistic or scholarly aptitudes, drawing on their colleagues' erudition and experience, as well as on the inestimable resources of the Italian capital, Europe and the Mediterranean. The Academy's Rome Prize winners, the core of a residential community of up to 100 people at any given time, are at the center of a multi-disciplinary environment, where artists and scholars are encouraged to work collegially within and across disciplines.