The Filson Historical Society Awards Three History Inspires Fellowships for 2025
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The Filson Historical Society is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2025 History Inspires Fellowship (HIF). This unique program allows artists to interpret the Filson’s collections with a creative filter.
In recent years, the Filson has established relationships with regional artists, either through the artist’ donations of materials to its collection or by artists conducting research for creative projects. The HIF program will build upon those relationships by promoting the Filson Historical Society as a resource for artistic scholarly research and inspiration while strengthening the bond with the creative community.
For the 2025 cycle, 13 applications featuring a wide array of creative project ideas, were reviewed by a cross-departmental committee made up of six Filson staff members. Of the 13, three were selected to receive the fellowship. The candidates are as follows:
Lori Larusso is an American visual artist working primarily with themes of domesticity and foodways. Lori will find inspiration from the H. Harold Davis collection of food photography and the KY cookbook collection to create a series of paintings and small installations.
Moria Magre is a Mixed Media and Cosplay Artist and will explore articles of clothing in the Filson’s collections predating the ready-made paper sewing patterns that began in the late 1910s and virtually deconstruct the clothing and create downloadable patterns for sharing.
Sarah Pennington an artist and writer will research the Filson’s materials related to suffrage in Kentucky and use a docupoetic approach, a style of writing that incorporates poetic techniques such as erasure, collage, found poetry and poetic retellings of events to create a manuscript that will showcase the history of voting rights and disenfranchisement in the region.
The History Inspire Fellows began their research in January 2025 and meet with Filson staff on a regular basis to discuss their progress. Each project for this cycle will conclude in Fall 2025 with an event sharing their project. These events will be open to the public and dates will be announced in the second half of the year. In 2026, an exhibit will be planned that will feature several of the artists’ work alongside the items utilized from the Filson’s collection.
To learn more about the Filson’s fellowship programs, please visit filsonhistorical.org/about-us/fellowships.