CentralTrak

CentralTrak, The University of Texas at Dallas Artists Residency, provides space for eight artists to live, work and exhibit, and serves as a community center for broad intellectual discourse around the arts. While the Residency promotes artistic experimentation through its support of production, the companion Gallery encourages critical engagement with the local urban context through its exhibitions and related programs. By building on the forward-thinking intellectual resources of the School of Arts & Humanities at The University of Texas at Dallas, CentralTrak unites artists from a broad range of creative disciplines to extend and challenge contemporary notions of artistic practice, creative expression, and the role technology can play in these processes.

CentralTrak supports four artists - one Texas artist and three national and international artists - for varying periods of time, from one month to one year. Artists live and work in the Residency, and many decide to exhibit their own work or curate exhibitions in the Gallery. Visiting artists also engage the greater public of DFW by giving public lectures in area arts institutions, such as the Dallas Museum of Art and The Nasher Sculpture Center, and by offering workshops or classes at UT Dallas or other local schools and universities.

CentralTrak is located the historic and recently renovated Fair Park Station Post Office Building in Deep Ellum. The name CentralTrak comes from the rich history of Deep Ellum and derives from the "central tracks" of a tramline that once connected the south side of the city to Main Street and the Central Business District. In choosing this name, we pay homage to the cultural history of the area - the fact that Deep Ellum was an area settled as a "freedmens' town" by former slaves after the Civil War and that it was an entertainment, retail, and industrial hub.