Monday, August 25, 2025
From left: UNT faculty members and 2025-26 IAA fellows Sungji Hong, Binod Shrestha and Josh Gilbert
DENTON (UNT), Texas 鈥� With support from the Institute for the Advancement of the Arts (IAA), three professors are pursuing transformative and meaningful creative research projects as 2025-26 IAA Fellows.
to support and advance excellence in the visual, performing, creative and literary arts. Each year, the university selects professors to be part of the Faculty Fellows program, which enables UNT faculty to spend a semester focusing on creative endeavors that will deepen their scholarship, enhance their teaching and elevate UNT鈥檚 national profile.
The 2025-26 IAA Faculty Fellows are:
Josh Gilbert | Stop-motion film focused on grief and end-of-life decisions
Gilbert, assistant professor of practice in media arts in the , will create a short film titled Trophies. The film will follow a man with a terminal illness who, facing his final days without the support of family or friends, takes comfort in the inanimate objects in his room and the memories they spark.
Gilbert was inspired to make Trophies by personal experiences and conversations with others surrounding end-of-life care for loved ones.
鈥淚t鈥檚 easy for a lot of people to talk about horror movies or crime podcasts, but when it comes to discussing our own mortality, the subject suddenly becomes too upsetting or morbid to focus on. Because of that, so many questions and preparations we could have started with loved ones are put on hold,鈥� Gilbert said. 鈥淚 wrote the script with the goal of starting that conversation.鈥�
Gilbert will create the short film using stop-motion animation, a medium that he first encountered while working in television. While animation tends to be time-consuming, Gilbert said his passion for it 鈥� as well as the film鈥檚 subject matter 鈥� make it a natural choice. The project will also include the creation of a script-to-screen documentary intended to explain the production process and help students learn more about creating animated content.
鈥淣o matter what media-related career path you鈥檙e pursuing, more experience means more opportunities to find new passions. And of course, experience makes you a more well-rounded and knowledgeable creator,鈥� Gilbert said. 鈥淭his project is giving me a chance to do that, too.鈥�
Gilbert is an Emmy Award-winning writer and producer whose television work includes animation, game and talk shows, reality, variety and network half-hour shows. He has also sold film pitches and scripts to studios and production companies including Universal, Disney, Paramount and New Line. Currently, he is developing independent film projects with a Texas-based production company.
Sungji Hong | New chamber work premiere with Hand Werk ensemble in Cologne, Germany
Hong, associate professor of composition in the , will create a new chamber work for multiple instruments. The piece will premiere in Summer 2026 in Cologne, Germany, and will be performed by the ensemble , an internationally acclaimed group celebrated for their work in contemporary music.
Chamber music is a type of classical music written to be played by a small group, usually with just one player per musical part. Hong鈥檚 new work will be written for flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano.
鈥淐hamber music offers an intimate dialogue between individual voices and the collective sound of an ensemble,鈥� Hong said. 鈥淗and Werk brings a rare blend of precision and imagination that will help bring my vision to life.鈥�
Following its world premiere in Germany, Hong and Hand Werk will perform the new work at UNT鈥檚 Voertman Hall as part of a 60-minute portrait, or retrospective, concert of Hong鈥檚 chamber works. The concert will be open to the UNT community and the public.
鈥淲riting music is often a long and challenging process, but hearing it performed live is incredibly rewarding,鈥� Hong said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a reminder that every bit of effort and persistence is worth it.鈥�
Hong鈥檚 music has received praise from BBC Music Magazine, The Daily Telegraph and The New York Times. Her compositions include works for solo instruments, orchestra, chorus, ballet and electro-acoustic media. Her work 鈥淢issa Lumen de Lumine,鈥� performed by the vocal ensemble Trio Mediaeval, received critical acclaim and reached the top ten on the Billboard Classical Chart and iTunes classics. Hong鈥檚 work has been performed in over 47 countries and 213 cities, broadcast in more than 17 countries and won 54 distinctions and prizes.
Binod Shrestha | Exhibition and performance artwork exploring violence, memory and displacement
Shrestha, professor in the (CVAD), will create a 30-to-60-minute theatrical production featuring over 40 performers and local community members in Kathmandu, Nepal, where the piece will premiere. The production is informed by Shrestha鈥檚 personal experiences and ongoing research into inherited memory and violence, and how those factors affect individuals鈥� bodies, minds and environments.
鈥淰iolence plays a very important role in world politics and history. The history of humanity is the history of violence,鈥� Shrestha said. 鈥淚鈥檓 thinking about how that shapes us as people.鈥�
The production will be filmed and will include multimedia elements like drawings, soundscapes and fabricated art objects. When the production run ends, Shrestha hopes to exhibit the elements in galleries in Boston and Dallas, giving CVAD students an opportunity to see and interact with the work. He said the multi-sensory experience will provide audiences with an immersive window into his artistic process.
鈥淚鈥檓 interested in how other artists frame these topics across different mediums, whether on a canvas or through a camera frame,鈥� Shrestha said. 鈥淚 tend to do installation work and sometimes temporary work, so this multi-sensory approach became a natural way for me to think about these subjects.鈥�
Shrestha is the inaugural director of , a studio-based program open to all first-year UNT CVAD majors. He is an artist who works across media and is the recipient of more than a dozen awards, grants and residencies. He is one of the recipients of the 2025 Otis and Velma Davis Dozier Travel Grant. In 2023, he was the recipient of the Master Educator Award from Foundations in Art: Theory and Education (FATE), serving as the 2023-25 vice president of development for FATE.
From 鈥� Faculty Award