About
Centraltrak is in the historic and newly renovated Fair Park Station Post Office Building in Deep Ellum, a revitalizing neighborhood and hip alembic chamber for creativity and artistic happenings. The name Centraltrak comes from the rich history of Deep Ellum. Because of the proximity of the Houston and Texas Centraltraks, the neighborhood was also known as "Centraltrak." 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.
Centraltrak is a multi-purpose arts building, with four live-work loft spaces for artists, eight studios for U.T. Dallas MFA students, and a gallery. We host four visiting artists, three international or national artists from outside of Texas and one Texan. Artists are selected by a committee of senior faculty of the School of Arts and Humanities at U.T. Dallas and members of the curatorial and educational staffs of the Dallas Museum of Art. The artists carry out projects in the space of Centraltrak and public realm of DFW, exhibit their work, and give public lectures for periods varying from two weeks to twelve months. As part of its expansive vision of art as experimentation and intellectual inquiry, Centraltrak hosts an ongoing lecture series and a full exhibition calendar for the on-site gallery coordinated by Dr. Charissa N. Terranova, the Director of Centraltrak.
The University of Texas at Dallas
The University of Texas at Dallas is a young, dynamic research institution on the cutting edge of science, technology, engineering, business, and the arts. Started as a research institute in 1961, U.T. Dallas provides a unique learning environment and anticipates becoming one of the nation’s best public research universities. Since its inception, the University has developed and expanded an internationally important interdisciplinary program in Arts and Humanities. With three core areas of study – Historical Studies, Aesthetic Studies, and Literary Studies – the program has graduated students with BA, MA, BFA, MFA and PhD degrees in Aesthetics and Arts and Technology. Its graduate program combines rigorous academic study with studio practice and access to technology that is unique in the region.
The University of Texas at Dallas
History
In 2002, The University of Texas at Dallas created the first residency program for artists in the city of Dallas. Located initially at Southside-on-Lamar, it brought more than 30 artists from six countries to Dallas for residencies varying from one month to one year. Not only 
did these artists work seriously on individual projects rooted in their residency, but they also created exhibitions, taught classes, ran workshops, mentored students, organized readings, and created performances and site-specific installations. These occurred through the city of Dallas, particularly in core urban areas. The UTD-Southside Artist Residency became, in effect, Dallas’ first advanced urban laboratory for the arts. It brought young artists from the graduate programs at UTD, SMU, and UNT into contact with the best mid-career artists in North Texas. Into this volatile mix, artists from Mexico, Ethiopia, France, England, Argentina, Australia, China, and Korea were introduced to give a special international zest that can only occur in a great city. When this highly experimental program came to an end in 2005, UTD decided to create a permanent residency in the inner city and to seek institutional and financial partners to help create a program destined to become one of the very best in the nation. Centraltrak, the second incarnation of The UT Dallas Artists Residency, opens to the public in February 2008.
Director
Dr. Terranova, Professor of Aesthetic Studies at U.T. Dallas and Director of the Artists Residency, brings to the directorship a wide array of training and experiences. She holds four degrees in the arts, a BA in Art History from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, an MA in Art History from the University of Illinois at Chicago and an MA and PhD in the History and Theory of Architecture from Harvard University. She has taught art and architectural history and theory at Harvard University, the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Boston Architecture Center, and Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas. She was the art critic at the Dallas Observer, an alternative news weekly, from February 2004 through February 2007 and has been an art critic for the Dallas Morning News, the city’s daily newspaper, from February 2007 to the present. She has curated exhibitions at Harvard University and U.T. Dallas, is a frequent presenter at international colloquia on art, architecture, and urbanism and is published widely as an academic and critic.
