Life @ Otis : Faculty Life : Faculty Development

Dana Duff

2004-05 Faculty Development Grant

Faculty Development funds helped to pay for a part of the cost of my 5-week residency at the American Academy in Rome.

It was an honor for me to be accepted for a residency in this venerable place. And it turned out to be a perfect home base for my first encounter with the city of Rome. The Academy was populated by esteemed colleagues from a number of disciplines and illustrious institutions - each of whom gave talks, walks, lectures, and garnered access to many historical Roman sites not open to the public. I was powerfully influenced by discussions with my Rome Prize colleagues - in particular a film historian from Yale, Noa Steimatsky, and the poet Lisa Williams - leading me to cut a new version of my film, Some things about water: while there. I was invited to share this work with the entire academy and had a screening for the Academy Residents and Fellows, with a 2-hour discussion afterward. I consider this experience invaluable to the final form of my film. I was also able to shoot many rolls of footage for my new project, most importantly tracking locations from Fellini and Antonioni films of the sixties, films that figure prominently in the themes of this new work.

I had the intention of taking my film project there to work on the experience of "time" in my own filmmaking, backgrounded by my study of Italian cinema, however I was sorely unprepared for my encounter with the city of Rome itself. I had to put my plans aside and open up to an entirely different experience. This was probably the most powerful lesson. Of course the financial challenge is another thing - I hadn't prepared for the Euro-Dollar exchange dropping considerably. Fortunately the assistance of Otis's development funds made it possible to weather the extra burden. Beyond the documentation mentioned above, I am placing a copy of my movie in DVD form in the library, with images, and excerpts on the website. I am also including information on the American Academy in Rome (website links, alumni, application information) to recommend this residency to other Otis faculty.

The photographs included here are various sight-seeing activities with the Rome Academy fellows and visitors, among them a shot of John Pinto, art historian who is the foremost expert on Hadrian's Villa leading a day long tour of Rome fellows.

Photos:
1. My workspace in the loft of my studio at the Academy
2. Interior of the Pantheon
3. Pyramide
4. Capitolini Museum
5. Capitolini Museum
6. John Pinto at Hadrian's Villa
7. Hadrian's Villa
8. Excavation among working buildings in old Jewish Ghetto, looking out on Theatro Marcello
9. Natural History Museum in the EUR section; Mussolini's dream.
10. Outside the Coliseum.
11. Inside the Capitolini Museum