These had been the work of Russell Beck and Dr Alf Poole, former Director and former Chair, Southland Museum and Art Gallery.
This culminated in 1990 with the Art in the Sub-Antarctic programme, which provided an opportunity for Bill Hammond, Geerda Leenards, Shaun Burdon, Chester Nealie, Helen Mitchell, Lloyd Godman and Laurence Aberhardt, amongst others to participate in the joint Museum and DOC residency on the Sub-Antarctic Islands.
Anderson saw the residency as an opportunity to expose the Southland community, and the students of the Southern Institute of Technology, to the creative genius of some of New Zealand's greatest living artists.
In 1999 the Trustees—Shirley Palmer, Gwen Neave, Russell Beck and Wayne P Marriott—resolved to rename the Artist in Residence programme the William Hodges Fellowship.
Hodges was regarded as the first artist in residence in Southland, having depicted the flora, fauna and people of the region during Captain Cook's second voyage to New Zealand.