Reagan Adams isn’t waiting until she is an upper-division student to make her mark at UC Santa Cruz. Already a member of Dean Celine Parreñas Shimizu’s Leadership Board, Adams’ is using her passion for art and teaching to get involved on campus.

Connie Zheng, a 5th-year Ph.D. candidate in the History of Art and Visual Culture/Visual Studies program, is one of the artists featured in Phaidon Press' Vitamin V: Video and the Moving Image in Contemporary Art, a global survey of contemporary video and moving-image art from the last decade. All of the artists in Vitamin V were nominated and selected by an international panel of experts in the art world. Later this month, she will be showing a new map work in an exhibition titled The Plantation Plot at Ilham Gallery in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Jointly commissioned by Ilham and the Paris-based arts organization KADIST, The Plantation Plot runs from April 20 to September 21, 2025.

The UCSC Central Asian Ensemble directed by Tanya Merchant, associate professor, Music, and interim chair of Feminist Studies, recently was invited to Google Headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., to perform for the Google Nowruz/Navruz (New Day/Beginning of Spring) celebration hosted by the Central Asians of Google. The ensemble performed four pieces from Uzbekistan and Afghanistan and was joined by special guest, dancer Tara Pandeya.  

Though she is not a legacy, Emily Spitz is legacy-adjacent, given that both her mother and older brother attended UC Santa Cruz. A veteran of the UC system, Spitz, the program manager and advisor for Creative Technologies, started working at UCLA almost a decade ago. She worked a variety of administrative positions across her former university post, including as assistant to the chair of the Musicology Department, student advisor, and admissions director.

Research and community are always at the heart of Laurus Myth’s (‘09, B.F.A. Painting & Art) art practice. The San Francisco based creative found success across the Bay Area and is sharing her excitement for her upcoming shows.

Lecturer S. Topiary Landberg helped to get a landmark lesbian documentary, In the Best Interests of the Children (dirs. Frances Reid, Elizabeth Stevens, Cathy Zheutlin, 1977), restored, through UCLA with the help of National Film Preservation Fund and Women’s Preservation Fund grants. The newly restored film will be presented at the UCLA Film & Television Archive in a free screening at the Billy Wilder Theater in the Hammer Museum on June 6, along with Topiary's new video essay short Lesbian Custody.

Marin Theatre will be presenting the U.S. premiere of It’s True, It’s True, It’s True, a wildly original play detailing the riveting 1612 trial of Agostino Tassi for the rape of 17-year-old female Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi. Directed by Rebecca Wear, assistant professor, Performance, Play & Design, It’s True, It’s True, It’s True tells the story of how one woman finds revenge through her art, becoming one of the most successful painters of a generation. The production runs April 16–May 4. 

micha cárdenas, associate professor,

Critical Race & Ethnic Studies, who is also affiliated with Performance, Play & Design, is headlining the Bay Area Book Festival on Sunday, June 1 in dialogue with Judith Butler and MK Chavez. The event will be held at Freight & Salvage in Berkeley. Discussions will cover bad feminism, how gender has become a phantasm for emerging authoritarian regimes, writing as the Other, healing in activism and pathways forward and what to do in the face of so much uncertainty.

In a recent article in the renowned arts publication, Hyperallergic, about art scholars boycotting Columbia University over recent Trump administration crackdowns, T. J. Demos, professor and chair of the History of Art and Visual Culture program was quoted: “It’s a serious kind of new Red Scare,” Demos said. “Within the university, [artists] are vulnerable and being attacked because that’s the place where you have some of the most critical discussions, but also within the arts themselves.”

Spring is one of the most exciting times for music at University of California, Santa Cruz. While there are performances every quarter, spring represents the culmination of a year of labor and practice. It often offers more concert opportunities than other quarters and this year is no exception.

Each fall, Porter College hosts EnCore, a culminating showcase of Porter 1, the college’s core course. The event features multimedia art and book projects created by students through the Creative Commons and invites the campus community to view, interact with, and celebrate the thoughtful, personal, and often provocative work students produce throughout the quarter.

Je'Mae Thomas, Film and Digital Media senior, applied to and was selected by the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures to participate in a workshop called Shaping Critique: A Film Critic Writing Workshop. This outstanding opportunity was circulated by Professor of Film and Digital Media Shelley Stamp, and Thomas participated in the summer Bologna global seminar with her.

In Isaac Julien’s thrilling show, I Dream a World at the de Young, the shifting images on gallery screens seem to respond to one another with something approaching sentience. If montage is the language that film uses to communicate things like character, plot and emotion to us, then Julien’s elaborate video pieces speak in a cinematic language I’ve never heard before.

The winter exhibition of Pixar short pitches from THEA 80P – Pixar Story Matters, led by Lecturer Noah Lucé, showcases standout projects from the 387-person class. This gallery highlights the creativity, heart, and storytelling craft explored throughout the quarter. The online exhibition was beautifully updated and developed by the class's Teaching Assistants, Sierra Wypych and Prithvi Rey. 

First-year arts and politics major Brayden Lillie recently painted a utility box at River Street in Santa Cruz as part of the 50th anniversary Pride celebration happening throughout Santa Cruz. Lillie's painting details the Santa Cruz nightlife scene, specifically the historical gay bars and queer spaces. The formal unveiling is on April 28.