Arts Division Newsletter

As a history and education major with a minor in theater arts, senior Sara Sotelo is looking forward to taking time to decompress after graduation before taking the next big step of applying to graduate school for an MFA in dramaturgy or possibly an MA in history.

San Francisco Cinematheque and INCITE Journal of Experimental Media announce the release of Craig Baldwin: Avant to Live!—five years in the making. Celebrating the life work of Bay Area underground legend Craig Baldwin this 508-page publication, edited by Brett Kashmere and Steve Polta, features contributions from over 50 writers, artists, illustrators, and ideologues. The book also includes contributions from a number of people with UC Santa Cruz connections, including Rick Prelinger, Chip Lord, Benjamin Schultz-Figueroa (Distinguished Graduate Alumni 2023), Alex Johnston, and Megan Needels. 

Nathaniel Berman was music director of an opera performed at Herbst theater in San Francisco in March. Prospero’s Island re-envisions Shakespeare’s play The Tempest in the Falkland Islands in the 1950s, with Prospero a war criminal from Germany, trying to tie up his familial loose ends while preparing to give himself up to justice for unspeakable biological experimentation during the war. New music ensemble Ninth Planet was the instrumental ensemble, with a cast featuring Andrew Dwan (SF Opera Merola alumnus), Shawnette Sulker, Bradley Kynard, Amy Foote, and others.

As a child, Lucas Elmer Gasperik thought that pursuing an honorable profession such as being a fireman or a chef was what he should aspire to, but then art took hold of his imagination.

Award-winning actor, comedian, musician, writer, and producer Andy Samberg spent his first two years of college at UC Santa Cruz from 1996-98, studying experimental film. While a student at UCSC, he worked as a ticket-taker at the Del Mar movie theater in downtown Santa Cruz. He went on to become a cast member and writer for Saturday Night Live from 2005-12, and has since starred in many films and television shows.

New York Times writer Elizabeth Fullerton covered Professor Isaac Julien’s latest exhibition, What Freedom is to Me on now at Tate Britain. It is the largest exhibition of the artist’s work ever staged in his home country. The title comes from a quote by the singer Nina Simone in a 1968 interview: “I will tell you what freedom is to me: No fear.”

A feature story that originally aired on KAZU radio Sept. 21, 2022 about the African American Theater Arts Troupe, founded and directed by Don Williams, has just won a regional Edward R. Murrow award in the category of Excellence in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. The Murrow awards are presented by the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA), a national organization that includes both commercial and non-commercial broadcast stations. Among the most prestigious in news, the Murrow Awards recognize local and national news stories that uphold the RTDNA Code of Ethics, demonstrate technical expertise and exemplify the importance and impact of journalism as a service to the community.



Art alumnus (Porter, 1995) and Arts Dean’s Advocacy Council member, Fritz Chesnut’s work is featured in SWELL, a group exhibition at the Manhattan Beach Art Center (MBAC) and Gallery 208 on now through July 2, 2023. Taking inspiration from surfing and surf culture, SWELL features work from 18 artists who begin their creative journey at the ocean and dive deep into exploration of materials, techniques, messages, and inspiration.

Called Life Cycle Throne, Vanessa Murray recently finalized this piece that focuses on the intersectionality of nature, lineage, and transformative futures through an ecocentric lens of interactive sculpture. This work connects our relationship to nature through reclamation and ancestral acknowledgment as we navigate an alienated, capitalist world. The chair sculpture displays studies of aeonium succulents to inspire adaptation and resilience for a future filled with more sustainable practices.

Destiny Oliva, majoring in Performance, Play & Design, presented a research paper in April at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire's Haas Fine Arts Center. The paper, titled Psychology of Acting Disassociation Methodology, covers a psychology-based methodology for character building. Destiny summarizes the approach saying that it "allows the actor or performer to explore their character deeply, enabling them to step into the role with a greater understanding of their character's responses and reactions. It also gives the performer a chance to differentiate between the character and the real human being." Using the acronym T.E.A.M.S. (Trauma, Empathy, Attachment Theory, Mental Health, Sociometry) she has created a tool to help guide the disassociation process while doing a deep character analysis.

Zoë Hruby-Linstrom's 2022 project, Social Ills: Narrating Contemporary Political Issues Through Oil Painting, has been selected as one of the ten outstanding undergraduate research projects in the Art's Division. Their project, completed in Spring of 2022, narrates the dynamic ideological divisions and hypocrisies in the American political theater. Utilizing oil paint as their medium, Hruby-Linstrom drew inspiration from their research as a legal studies minor with the intention of exposing the unjust practices of individuals with power in a succinct manner.



A. Laurie Palmer, professor in the Art Department, will be presenting at The Lichen Museum: Book Talk and Walk in May at the College of the Atlantic in Maine, Daniel Tucker's Ecosocial Salon/Making Worlds Books in Philadelphia, and the Death Studies workshop at Northwestern University in Evanston.

Art Professor Elizabeth Stephens and her partner Annie Sprinkle are teaming up with Performance Space New York (PS122), June 14, and 16-18th, to co-produce Exploring the Earth as Lover on Manhattan's Lower East Side. This will be a multimedia happening with panels, films, performances & more. Together they will explore how to forge new relationships with the environment and social justice; engage in human/non-human collaboration; critique calcified ideologies; and create new sexualities—all through the lens of an environmentalism that is feminist, queer, sensual, sexual, posthuman, materialist, exuberant, and steeped in humor. 

Find out more and join us for this event!

Jennifer Parker, Art Professor and Director of the OpenLab Collaborative Research Center, will work closely with Jonathan Hicken, Executive Director, Daris Jasper and Jordan Boudreaux, Associate Directors of Community Engagement, to develop innovative art and science exhibitions, events, and community-engaged experiences to advance the priorities of California’s Climate Adaptation Strategies, especially its priority to Strengthen Protections for Climate Vulnerable Communities. Seed Funding for the new initiative was made possible by UCSC Center for Coastal Climate Resilience (CCCR).



MFA candidate, Digital Arts and New Media, Livia Perez’s new documentary, M IS FOR MOTHERS, will premiere at Frameline, the largest and longest-running LGBTQ+ film festival in the world. Livia’s third feature documentary will play on June 18th and will be available online as part of the feature documentary official selection. M is for Mothers is a touching and intimate portrait of queer motherhood. Livia Perez’s delicate filmmaking and camera work meditate on pregnancy, breastfeeding and the future of queer families in Latin America.



UCSC junior, Michael Fischer Haagens, pursuing a Bachelor of Music major in piano performance, is enrolled in individual piano lessons at UCSC, studying with Dr. Chia-Lin and also performs as a pianist with the UCSC Large Jazz Ensemble. In April 2023 he participated in the Orbetello International Piano Competition and was awarded 2nd prize for his performance of Aleksandr Scriabin: Valse, Op.38 and Johann Sebastian Bach: Prelude in C minor, BWV 847.

This year’s Irwin Scholars were joyfully celebrated by their friends, family, faculty and staff around the Koi Pond at Porter College on May 18. They were welcomed and congratulated by Dean Celine and introduced by Art Department Chair Professor Jimin Lee and Professor Elizabeth Stephens. The students each gave moving speeches, thanking their parents, many of whom traveled from long distances to be there in person, along with the professors who inspired them. The William Hyde and Susan Benteen Irwin Scholarship Fund was established in 1986, with a modest donation by Sue Irwin, and now generates 12 annual merit scholarships to further the education of selected UCSC Art Department students for proven excellence in the arts. Their exhibition, entitled Blueprint, is at the Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery through May 27, 2023.

Digital Arts and New Media MFA Candidate, Saul Villegas, won this year’s Graduate Symposium in the Arts category for his presentation called Deep-Sea Coral III. Judges representing UCSC staff, postdoctoral scholars, graduate student alumni, UCSC Foundation trustees, and community members determined an overall best presentation and five academic division best presentations. 

On Friday, May 19, Emmy-nominated and Peabody Award-winning co-creator, executive producer, director, and writer of the FX drama series POSE, Steven Canals, and Film & Digital Media Professor L.S. Kim were in conversation with students talking about redefining diversity through creative interventions and how to utilize them for social change. Canals spoke about his personal journey and how he translated his lived experience into a drama series that advocates for the LGBTQ community.