LONDON.- The Rockefeller Foundation tonight announced the inaugural recipients of its Bellagio Creative Arts Fellowships, Mona Hatoum, Kofi Setordji, and Shahzia Sikander. These fellowships are highly selective residencies that continue the Foundation’s storied tradition supporting cultural innovation and creative expression.

Ms. Hatoum, Mr. Setordji, and Ms. Sikander were nominated and chosen by an advisory panel of influential curators, artists, and art scholars. They will be provided with three month residencies in a private apartment with studio space on the grounds of the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, adjacent to Northern Italy’s Lake Como. They were honored during a ceremony at London’s Langham Hotel. Subsequent fellows will be designated annually.

“The Rockefeller Foundation is proud to build on an extraordinary record promoting the humanities,” said Judith Rodin, the Foundation’s President. “These fellowships serve a dual mission: they help groundbreaking artists reach their full potential and they enable the arts to inspire our shared creativity and imagination. There is a deep and timeless connection between cultural advances and social progress. This new program will help strengthen both."

The Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center regularly hosts policymakers, professionals, and thought-leaders, from around the world, for residencies, conferences, and candid, robust exchanges of ideas. While affording a unique opportunity to three exceptional artists, the Bellagio Arts Fellowships will also enrich the experience of other Bellagio conferees and residents, enhancing the thinking behind and impact of the center's work. Former Bellagio residents have included writers Maya Angelou, Michael Ondaatje, and composer Eve Beglarian.

Participants in the center’s conference program have included Nobel Laureates Henry Kissinger, Rajendra Pachauri, Shimon Peres, and Joseph Stiglitz.

“To be offered a period of calm and distance away from other obligations allowed me to focus on the development of my writing,” Catherine de Zegher, Bellagio Creative Arts Advisory Panel member and former resident, said. “I relished the opportunity that the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center presented to meet other resident scholars, who have encouraged me and continue to inspire my work through conversation and critical thinking.”

The Rockefeller Foundation was established by John D. Rockefeller, Sr., in 1913. With assets of more than $4 billion, the Foundation works around the world to ensure that globalization's benefits and opportunities are spread more fully in more communities. Since 2005, the Rockefeller Foundation has launched major initiatives to strengthen global health systems, bolster resilience to climate change in poor communities around the world, mobilize an agricultural revolution in Africa, rebuild New Orleans in the wake of Katrina, strengthen the economic security of working families, and shape smarter, more sustainable transportation policies in the United States.