April 23, 5:00 p.m.

Atkinson Hall, CALIT2 Auditorium, UC San Diego

Join us at the Qualcomm Institute for an evening of speculative fiction with readings by interdisciplinary artists Jordan Crandall and Clement Goldberg, as part of the UCSD Literature Department’s New Writing Series. This event is co-sponsored by Gallery QI.

Reception: April 25, 5:00 - 7:30 p.m.

April 21 - April 25, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m., or by appointment

Main Gallery, Visual Arts Facility, UC San Diego

TRACE is an exhibition by Gustavo Martinez that explores vacant and abandoned spaces as sites of cultural and social transformation in Inglewood and South Los Angeles. This body of work reflects on how physical erasure challenges and disrupts the community’s ability to remain present.

April 25, 1:00 - 2:30 p.m.

Dept. of Visual Arts, UC San Diego, Livestream

Mary Mattingly (b. 1978) is an interdisciplinary artist who cares deeply about water and believes in the power of public art. She founded Swale, an edible landscape on a public barge in New York City. Recent public art projects include Limnal Lacrimosa in Glacier National Park, Public Water with +More Art in New York, Vanishing Point with Metal Southend and Focal Point Gallery in the UK.

April 24 - April 27, see times at link

Qualcomm Institute, UC San Diego

Green Memories is a sad yet hopeful meditation on our natural and mental ecology. The piece is inspired by the poetry of Forough Farrokhzad, who has been hailed as one of the most important contemporary poets of Iran. Farrokhzad's writing is revered for her depth of feeling and poignant philosophical approach toward the social and political issues of her time. She foresees the future of our social, political, and natural ecologies.

April 22 - April 26, 1:00 - 4:00 p.m.

UpThere, 353 Visual Arts Facility, UC San Diego

Harnessing my emotions and what I’ve experienced in life drives my artistic practice. Grappling with time passing and introspection of my personal life are notable themes that I explore in my works. While attending UCSD, commuting has played a pivotal role in shaping my perception of time. Despite living only about twenty miles away, in National City, the back and forth away from home and to school has felt perpetual.

Reception: April 26, 5:00 - 8:00 p.m.

April 22 - April 26, 11:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.

Best Practice, San Diego, CA

BA alumni Kim Garcia, Liz Stringer, MFA alumni Maya VanderShuit, Walter Sutin, Allison Wiese, Cat Gunn, Joe Yorty, Maria Mathioudakis, Jean Lowe, Naomi Nadreau, Trevor Amery, Evelyn Walker, Gustavo Martinez, Jessica Buie, Kirstyn Hom, Morgan Mandalay, Perry Vasquez, PhD alum Catherine Czacki, Lecturers Gosia Herc, Josh Tonies, Professor Janelle Iglesias, Professor Emeritus Kim MacConnel.

Reception: April 25, 12:00 - 3:00 p.m.

Facultad de Artes Mexicali, Mexíco

Organized by Lecturers Gosia Herc-Balaszek and Josh Tonies, along with Héctor Bázaca López (UABC), and Adrián Pereda Vidal (UABC), the project emerges from a shared commitment to experimental pedagogy that values process, dialogue, and artistic collaboration. The central prompt invites students to think beyond geographic and cultural divisions, using drawing as a medium for connection.

April 26 - September 7, 2025

Orange County Museum of Art, Costa Mesa, CA

Nice Girl presents a new body of oil pastel works that investigate the ubiquitous social media mirror selfie, reflecting how people both see themselves and share outward their own reflections. Across the 20 canvases that comprise the show’s installation, a series of anonymous young women meet our eye, each having made the choice to share their likeness online with the public.

April 26, 7:00 pm - 11:00 pm

Casa la línea arte contemporáneo, Calexico, CA

Haunting Present is a series of screenings, performances, and listening sessions that explore the medium as a space for the ghostly, and its relationship to the archive, the moving image, and technology. Framed within the notion of hauntology, these activations stem from the idea that certain elements of the past continue to insist upon the present, without being entirely alive or entirely absent.

April 26, 1:00 - 11:00 p.m.

SoMad, New York, NY

Mad World 2025 is en route/root! This year’s theme is Queer Ecologies, inspired by Staten Island’s Queer Ecologies Garden by the New York Restoration Project and Alice Austen House. The project celebrates the history of gardens as secret meeting places and sanctuaries for queer people, and features the planting and interpretation of non-binary and sex-changing species, such as ferns.

Reception: April 29, 5:00 - 8:00 p.m.

April 28 & 30, May 1 & 2; 3:00 - 6:00 p.m.

Adam D. Kamil Gallery, UC San Diego

In this exhibition, I explore the profound intersection of nostalgia, childhood, mourning, and loss. Through this journey, I invite viewers to reflect on their own lived experiences in escaping consuming nostalgia in order to newly contextualize their relationships with themselves and loved ones.

Reception: May 3, 12:00 - 4:00 p.m.

May 5 - May 10, 2025 by Appointment

Main Gallery, Visual Arts Facility, UC San Diego

Set You Free explores the embodiment of Anarkata, a spiritual and political force rooted in Black anarchist traditions, as a catalyst for liberation. Channeling ancestral rage, resistance, and love, the work combines video, sculpture, and photographic works to dismantle oppressive structures, advocating for violence as a transformative act of futurity.

Reception: May 3, 12:00 - 4:00 p.m.

May 3 - May 17, 2025

SME Gallery, Structural & Materials Engineering, UCSD

April 17 - September 28, 2025

Georg Kolbe Museum, Berlin, Germany

The exhibition focuses on the staging of memories and examines remembrance in its various forms – private and public. Contemporary artists open up diverse perspectives on the past and present through their own reflections on the subject.

April 10 - May 30, 2025

UpThere, 353 Visual Arts Facility, UC San Diego

A series of exhibitions throughout the spring will include undergraduate students David Lovell, Angelo Aguila, Gissela Castillo, Youngmi Bombach, Malika Charles, Adi Venkatesh, Amanda Salatino, Holda Ashima, Jaime Leynes, Jeana Yoon, Kyra Brantley, Lauren Reed, Maximiliano Hernandez, and Noah Harvey.

March 1 - June 15, 2025

Mandeville Art Gallery, UC San Diego

Border Craft is a group exhibition featuring contemporary artists employing craft practices to address the geopolitical realities of borderland regions. The works on view serve as a feminist and critical counterpoint to dehumanizing systems designed to divide people and cultures. The exhibition includes MFA alum Isidro Pérez García and Longenecker-Roth Artist in Residence, Tanya Aguiñiga.

October 4, 2024 - Ongoing

Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography

Embodied Pacific: Ocean Unseen invites you to explore Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Indigenous science through the eyes of contemporary artists. Collectively, the exhibition asks us to consider how ocean science technology is not just about “high-tech” but also very much about the tools we use to shape our understanding of the ocean’s unseen mysteries.

March 29 - April 30, 2025

CTRL Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

Superradiance is a multiscreen video and sound installation and film by Memo Akten and Katie Peyton Hofstadter that invites the viewer to extend their bodily perception beyond the skin and into the living environment. The work interweaves dance, poetry, music, generative imagery and the neurological phenomenon of embodied simulation with artificial intelligence.

March 29 - May 3, 2025

Galleri Urbane, Dallas, TX

The artist's recent residency in the desert vistas of Pioneertown, CA turned into an extended chapter in her exploration of the color blue. The Pioneertown desert and the Rocky Mountains come together to create a similar emotional environment. Piersol pulls from both, visually and psychologically, to create new landscapes.

March 6 - May 8, 2025

The FRONT Arte & Cultura, San Ysidro, CA

Casa Familiar’s 18th Annual Dia de la Mujer Exhibition at The Front. Visions of a future considers cultural aesthetics from Afrofuturism, Latinfuturism, and Chicanofuturism to question the relationship between past, present and future in the Americas, exploring themes of migration, colonialism, racism, and cultural identity while actively challenging dominant narratives.