Two alumni artists win Mortimer Hays-Brandeis Traveling Fellowships

Ciara McNamara ’24 and Sophia Rey ’26 have each been awarded a $19,000 Mortimer Hays-Brandeis Traveling Fellowship, which provides support to students in the visual and fine arts—including art history, conservation, studio art and photography—for a year of travel and living expenses outside of the United States.

The fellowships are funded by income from the Mortimer and Sara Hays Endowment at Brandeis University. Eligible applicants must have received an undergraduate degree no more than three years prior to the fellowship year from a small list of exclusive institutions that includes Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Wesleyan and Conn.

“Both Sophia’s and Ciara’s projects deal with contemporary global issues in different ways,” said Assistant Professor of Art Amanda Russhell Wallace, who is Conn’s institutional representative for the fellowship. “One of the wonderful things about the arts—in this case visual arts—is how students to professional artists bridge interests and disciplines into their practice. The fellowship provides a great opportunity for those interested in this way of thinking and working.”

Ciara McNamara ’24

Brooklyn native Ciara McNamara ’24 double majored in studio art and psychology and minored in English at Conn. Her winning project will explore the cultural formation and tradition of Austrian biodynamic mountain farming, bridging it to a contemporary dialogue with biodynamics today through a series of paintings and drawings and a visual ethnography.

During her fellowship year in Austria, McNamara will follow the lives and work of farmers whose practice reaches back to Austrian philosopher, esotericist and social reformer Rudolf Steiner’s introductory 1924 lecture series, “The Agriculture Course.” She plans to create a body of work demonstrating how farmers have responded to agrarian anxiety since the Interwar Era and imagine ways forward amid the global environmental crisis. 

Working alongside biodynamic mountain farmers in Austria, she will use participant observation, field sketches and semi-structured interviews to understand how contemporary growers navigate climate instability and supply demands. “My ultimate goal is to share my project in the form of an art show and published visual ethnography, reaching widespread audiences from artists and academics to the greater public in order to share how small farmers exist as key sources for imaginative and ethically responsible forms of progress.”

Her inspiration has been driving her for quite a while, she said. “I have always been drawn to the intersection of agroecology and art. During my time at Conn, I stayed on a local cattle farm in Attersee, Austria, where I discovered my passion toward animal welfare and agroecological stewardship. Soon after, I discovered that Austria is one of the most agriculturally sustainable countries in the world today, with substantial government funding to ensure the stability of longstanding mountain farming traditions on small farms.”

McNamara was awarded Connecticut College’s 2024 Oakes and Louise Ames Prize, given to a graduating senior who has completed the year’s most outstanding honors study, for her honors thesis, “The Spectacle of Consumption: I’m Lovin’ It,” for which she compiled research on ethical farming, consumerism and artists’ reactions to modern industrialization. She spent the past year volunteering on a local biodynamic farm in Vermont, creating plein air paintings, a watercolor book and drawing studies. 

“These experiences have convinced me that agriculture is a site of ethical, aesthetic and healing spiritual practice rather than extraction alone,” she said.

Sophia Rey ’26

Sophia Rey ’26, a Newport, Rhode Island native who majored in government and international relations and minored in studio art, will spend her fellowship year in Valencia, Spain, exploring a multidisciplinary project that examines the resurgence of far-right rhetoric through the intimate lens of portraiture and personal narrative. 

By combining oil paint and charcoal portraits with short interviews, her project aims to humanize the abstract themes of partisanship and conflicting perspectives, while acknowledging the agency of young Spaniards and the astuteness of older generations, she explained. 

Through art-based research and community engagement, Rey will build a visual and oral archive that humanizes ideological divides and highlights intergenerational dialogue. Her ultimate goal is to bridge cultural perspectives between Spain and the United States while deepening the understanding of how democratic values are interpreted, challenged and reimagined in the 21st century.

Rey has had an international perspective for most of her life. “I spent my childhood and high school years ‘travelschooling’ and living aboard a 50-foot powerboat. The majority of my life has been nomadic, though I spent the most time living in Spain, south Florida and the Bahamas.”

She’s bolstering her political perspective as well. Before leaving for her fellowship year in July, Rey will be working for her local Rhode Island congressman, U.S. Rep. Gabe Amo, to engage in constituent advocacy work and learn more about political culture.

Reflecting on her recently concluded time in New London as well as what’s coming next, Rey said, “I am overwhelmingly proud of everything that I got to be a part of at Connecticut College and am looking forward to my upcoming project through the Mortimer Hayes-Brandeis fellowship.”

Connecticut College offers a wide range of fellowship opportunities for students and recent graduates. For more information, visit The Walter Commons or email fellowships@conncoll.edu.