Each week, Arts Orange County and Culture OC deliver you this look at the stories and events happening in our arts and cultural community.

Sanctuary City

Adolescence is infinitely harder under the looming threat of deportation in post-9/11 New Jersey, in Pulitzer Prize-winner Martyna Majok's drama presented on the Chance Theater stage MORE

UCI’s Beall Center is Turning Social Media and AI on Themselves

“The medium is the message,” wrote Marshall McLuhan in 1964, arguing that our perceptions are shaped by how the information we receive is delivered and presented.

At UCI’s Beall Center for Art + Technology, the message is the medium. In “Disruptive Cultures: Affect and Effects of Social Media,” on view through June 27, creators use social media and AI to make art that examines and critiques social media and AI.

The exhibits are mostly engaging – clever and fun – but also, like all good art, they are pointed, poking at the tech behemoth and encouraging viewers to contemplate how we got here and, more importantly, where we are going.

In a symposium on the exhibit’s opening day, several of the artists talked about their pieces – their inspiration and what they are trying to convey to the viewer. 

Art Therapist Sara DeSmet Displays Resilience at Cypress College’s Gallery and in Her Own Practice

Irvine resident Sara DeSmet blends the arts with her therapeutic practice.



“Since I was really young, I've always loved to draw – make art,” DeSmet said. “So, it's just always been a part of my life and I feel like it's a need to get something out – that externalizing – getting that creativity out. And so when I went to college I majored in art and psychology, which actually did lend itself later on to art therapy. At first I wasn't certain, even after that trip, if I would pursue art therapy, but it was a consideration.”

Originally from Minnesota, DeSmet attended St. Olaf College in Northfield. During an interim in New York City, she explored the possibilities of an artistic career and her interest was piqued by an art therapist who had shared about her practice to the class. At the time, New York was an early trailblazer of art therapy. Since, California has adopted this artistic approach to counseling.

A New Neurodivergent Film Fest Comes to The Frida Cinema

The BluStar Film Festival showcased the works of neurodivergent filmmakers and topics on May 2 in Santa Ana.

Each week, we recommend a variety of events and experiences from the listings at SparkOC.com, our free website for Orange County's arts and cultural community.

Live! Music Insights

Laguna Beach Live! and the Philharmonic Society of Orange County join forces to celebrate the enduring musical dialogue between piano and violin with this wide-ranging program of duets played by Iryna Krechkovsky and Robert Koenig MORE

Mother's Day Concert in the Park

OC Parks and the City of Garden Grove pay tribute to Moms on Saturday with live music, food trucks, and vendors from the community MORE

Concert of the Century

An outdoor festival concert from Santa Ana Unified School District puts the spotlight on the many ways local students are making music across genres and styles MORE

Joseph Peragine - Pass the Ammunition

In a brand-new exhibit at CSUF's Grand Central Art Center, artist Peragine uses the visual language of animation to examine how the media can sanitize and circulate images of violence until a culture accepts them as normal MORE