Brian Hawkins (B.A. ’11) is extremely familiar with UMKC. He studied studio art and art history as an undergraduate student. He taught as an adjunct a few years later. Back in that role once again, Hawkins submitted and was selected for the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship.

The Guggenheim Fellowship, awarded by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, supports scholars across 50 areas of study with grants they can spend as the fellows see fit. This allows the fellows to focus on their work without worrying about financial backing.

“The Guggenheim Fellowship recognizes the rare combination of intellectual rigor, creative daring and cultural impact that defines Brian’s work," said Tamara Falicov, Ph.D., dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. "As both a celebrated member of our community and a distinguished alumnus of UMKC, he embodies the excellence, curiosity and creative leadership we strive to cultivate. We are so proud."

Of only 223 recipients across the United States and Canada, Hawkins was chosen for this esteemed honor. He joins only seven other UMKC faculty members to have received the Guggenheim honor.

“It’s very surreal,” Hawkins said. “I had a hard time believing it until I saw it in print. This fellowship is a rare opportunity to really focus on a project that’s been important to me for over a decade, but that I haven’t always had the time or resources to fully commit to. In that sense, it really is a dream.”

As an alumnus, UMKC supported his journey in a way that may differ from students who attended a stand-alone arts school.

“It took me a while to settle on studio art and art history majors, but as a result I took a lot of different classes: filmmaking, history, things like that,” Hawkins said. “All of it ended up having a pretty big impact on my life after university. You have the opportunity to explore many different fields and find connections between them.”

Of course, as an adjunct, he’s seen the changes that have come to media, art and design at UMKC.

“Film and art are now combined, and I think that’s exciting,” he said. “Had that been the case when I was a student, I would have loved it. I wouldn’t have felt like I had to choose between different interests.”

Those different interests are coming together in his project now being funded by his Guggenheim fellowship. Hawkins is creating an artistic documentary about the folklore of the Missouri French Creole community.

“I’ve been working with archival audio collected mostly in the 1970s and early 80s, interviews with Missouri francophones recalling their childhoods around the 1910s,” Hawkins said. “These archival recordings are incredible, but they don’t neatly fit into a traditional documentary. They build a deeply immersive sense of place, almost like a novel. That’s where animation becomes really powerful. When you’re making animated films, you create everything, the environment and the characters, from scratch. The small details people shared in these oral histories can breathe a lot of life into the work.”

Hawkins is excited to see what final form the project will take, and his fellowship will allow him time and resources to make it exactly what he wants.

“It’s a long process,” he said. “This project will take years, but I’m excited to see where it leads.”