Florida State University School of Dance associate professor nia love has received a 2026 Guggenheim Fellowship in Choreography for her work “Floating Metal: UNDERcurrents in My Father’s Garden.”
“Receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship is a significant national recognition and a meaningful acknowledgment of the impact of nia love’s creative work,” said James Frazier, dean of the College of Fine Arts. “This award is among the most prestigious honors that an artist may receive during their career. Her selection reflects both her individual excellence and the strength of the arts at Florida State University.”
love’s ties to FSU and the College of Fine Arts run deep. Since receiving her Master of Fine Arts degree from FSU in 1992, she has built a career as a highly regarded artist and choreographer in New York City. She has been recognized with three Bessie Awards, a Fullbright Fellowship and a Herb Alpert Award, among many other honors. In 2024, she returned to FSU as a faculty member, following in the footsteps of her father, Ed Love, a renowned sculptor and 1987 Guggenheim Fellow, who served as an FSU Visual Arts professor from 1990 until his passing in 1999.
For the artist, dance has long been a way to maintain a connection with her father, and this relationship stands at the center of her work.
“Dance has been a way to breathe in unbreathable spaces, a way to be held by people who are no longer here, whispering states of unconditional love,” she said. “I remember when I was 5, my favorite place to improvise my dancing moves was down the grocery store aisles. It was there, under my father’s gaze that he first told me to ‘do the dance.’ Now here without him 27 years later, I continue to ‘do the dance.’”
“Floating Metal: UNDERcurrents in My Father’s Garden” is an expansive project that is personal for the artist and explores her connection to her father through their art, examining inheritance and memory and reflecting on the still-lingering impacts of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the Middle Passage.
Part of this Guggenheim-winning work will be a large-scale exhibition, scheduled to open in August at the FSU Museum of Fine Arts. It will encompass three galleries and feature a dialogue between love’s performance work and her father’s sculptures, paintings and photographs.
love was selected as part of the 101st class of Guggenheim Fellows from among more than 5,000 applicants. She joins 223 artists, scholars and scientists, representing 55 distinct fields. She is the third current FSU School of Dance faculty member to achieve this honor, joining colleagues Jawole Willa Jo Zollar (2009 Fellow) and Gwen Welliver (2025 Fellow).
For more information about the FSU School of Dance, visit dance.fsu.edu.
To learn more about upcoming exhibitions at the FSU Museum of Fine Arts, including “Floating Metal: UNDERcurrents in My Father’s Garden,” visit MoFA.fsu.edu or follow the museum on Instagram, at @fsumofa.
Editor’s Note: Per the artist’s request, the name nia love should appear in all lowercase letters.