The MESDA Summer Institute in Southern Decorative Arts and Material Culture

The MESDA Summer Institute is a fully-funded multi-disciplinary decorative arts and material culture field school and fellowship program for graduate students, museum professionals, makers, and independent scholars taught by the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and the University of Virginia.  The Institute will be held June 4 through June 30, 2023.  Applications are due February 15.

The 2023 MESDA Summer Institute will use decorative arts and material culture of the Lowcountry as its laboratory. Summer Institute Fellows spend a month working closely with MESDA’s unparalleled collection and research resources. Using primary-sources and object-based analysis fellows gain experience with decorative arts across a range of media and learn how to create compelling object- and place-based narratives. The curriculum includes lectures and collection studies with leading curators and scholars, hands-on workshops with master craftspeople, and an intensive week-long study trip from Charleston, South Carolina, to St. Mary’s, Georgia.