Needles from my grandfather’s ship. Photograph by Alina Taalman.

Alina Taalman (MFA ‘15) is the recipient of the inaugural Cassilhaus Travel Fellowship. She will travel to Estonia to “make a film that explores my Estonian family history, which has always been broken into fleeting narratives.” Taalman’s fellowship will begin in August and will culminate with a public presentation in Durham in spring 2018.

The Cassilhaus Travel Fellowship, made possible through a partnership between Cassilhaus, the Master of Fine Arts in Experimental and Documentary Arts (MFA|EDA), and the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, was created with the idea that travel can be transformative in the life of an emerging artist. The biennial $10,000 fellowship, funded by Ellen Cassilly and Frank Konhaus of Cassilhaus, supports recent Duke University MFA|EDA graduates in their artistic research and practice beyond the traditional educational environment for an eighteen-month period.