Arts Division Newsletter

As a member of campus Junebug Sonnenberg is part of the African American Theater Arts Troupe (AATAT) and Rainbow Theater, while working at the Cultural Arts & Diversity Resource Center (CADRC). “They really do so much for student retention, especially students of color on this campus,” says Sonnenberg. “It's really been a joy and an honor to be a part of these spaces and to also be able to lift up other students' spaces.”

Siamak Barghi is an Iranian musician, and composer, and is currently a Ph.D. student in Musicology/Ethnomusicology at the UC, Santa Cruz. He received his MA in Ethnomusicology in 2021 from the University of Tehran, Iran. As an instrumentalist (Violinist, Tonbak, and Kamanche Player), he has performed numerous concerts during 2006-2023 in his country and abroad.

Noah Lucé was recently featured in an interview in Bold Journey magazine. As a lecturer in drama at the University of California Santa Cruz and the Associate Artistic Director at New Canon Theatre, I am deeply passionate about the transformative power of storytelling through theater. At UC Santa Cruz, I have the privilege of teaching and mentoring aspiring theater artists, fostering their creativity and guiding them on their artistic journeys. This past November I had the privilege of directing our Mainstage production, Eurydice, by Sarah Ruhl.

Adriana Gonzalez, an administrative assistant for the music program, loves to take her cat, Leah, to the beach to let her dig holes in the sand. “She acts like a dog,” says Gonzalez. “She's on guard and then she'll just start digging randomly.” When she’s not busy taking her cat out, Gonzalez loves to spend time with her son.

Since graduating from University of California, Santa Cruz Mike Dillon has been credited in the production of over 100 films. His accomplishments include working on movies such as The Blind Side (2009), Gravity (2013), and 16 separate Marvel movies.

Dean Celine’s film 80 YEARS LATER was recently selected to screen at the American Library Association National Conference in San Diego on June 30. The ALA Annual Conference & Exhibition brings together thousands of librarians and library staff, educators, authors, publishers, friends of libraries, trustees, special guests, and exhibitors to the world's largest library event.

UC Santa Cruz announced the recipients of the 2023 Chancellor’s Innovation Impact awards, recognizing the outstanding research and creativity taking place across the university. Susana Ruiz, associate professor of film and digital media, Huy Truong, Emmy Award-nominated director of photography and media artist, and Professor Emerita of Literature Karen Tei Yamashita, received the 2023 Innovator of the Year award for The Last Chinatown, a public memorial experience bringing light to the historical erasure of Santa Cruz’s last Chinatown, which was destroyed by a flood in 1955, through photography, augmented reality (AR), and holographic filmmaking.

On March 6th, 2024, composer-pianist–keyboardist James Gordon Williams collaborated with spoken word artist, composer, and Visiting Professor Moor Mother (Camae Dennis) in a project Williams entitled “The Worldmaking Aura of Sonic Blackness.” The sold-out event took place at the UCSC Music Center Recital Hall. The artistic work was based on Williams’s research into the discourse of Black Quantum Futurism and being inspired when seeing Moor Mother perform in Paris approximately one year prior in February 2023. Williams played pre-composed and improvised music while Moor Mother spoke poetry and improvised on various electronic instruments.

The Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery has a new museum preparator, Veriche Blackwell. They began working in the arts as a student intern at the Sesnon Gallery and are excited to return and share their passion for art handling with students. For them, putting on an exhibition feels like creating an ephemeral immersive sculpture in collaboration with the artist(s) and curator. They are always learning new crafts and skills for different exhibitions and feel so lucky to have a job which is always pushing them to learn more. Veriche also supports exhibition installations at the Institute of Arts & Sciences. In their free time enjoys reading (particularly sci-fi), playing casual sports with friends, and hanging out with their two cats.



The Neighbour, a film produced by Lalu Ozban, Ph.D. Candidate in Film and Digital Media (designated emphasis in Feminist Studies; designated emphasis in Critical Race and Ethnic Studies) and directed by Cedoy, was recently featured as part of the San Francisco Urban Film Festival’s Trans World-Building event at the Tenderloin Museum. Trans World-Building was curated by Kaiya Gordon (UCSC Feminist Studies) and LB Byrd, and explored how gender-expansive individuals navigate and influence their environments despite societal restrictions. The Neighbour delves into the struggles of trans people facing housing insecurity in Istanbul.

Recently, the Arts Division hosted a workshop with alumnus and noted artist Fritz Chestnut. For three days Chestnut worked with a group of Art students teaching them a technique for applying paint distinctively to canvas using unexpected tools and materials as a new mode of creating abstract art.

An article about artist and UCSC Arts Division alumnus, Fritz Chesnut’s work is featured in the latest Surfer's Journal titled Impact Zone - Breaking Everything with Fritz Chesnut written by Alex Weinstein. The Surfer's Journal also put out "a short film companion" to the print profile made by Tyler Haft, Brendan and Jackson Calder.

Associate Professor of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies and Performance, Play and Design, micha cárdenas, has been elected to the national council of the American Studies Association (ASA). ASA promotes the development and dissemination of interdisciplinary research on U.S. culture and history in a global context. Its purpose is to support scholars and scholarship committed to original research, critical thinking, and public dialogue.

The Institute of the Arts and Sciences at UC Santa Cruz (IAS) and San José Museum of Art (SJMA) are pleased to present Seeing through Stone, a multi-sited exhibition bringing together works by international artists whose works engage a history of struggle against prisons and their harms. This is the largest exhibition to date of Visualizing Abolition—an ongoing scholarship initiative exploring art, prisons, and justice organized by the IAS. Seeing through Stone will be on view at all three venues through January 5, 2025.

Professor Enrique Leal and artist Barbara Benish are presenting a series of monoprints, published soon by Manchester University Press, (2024) in collaboration with political philosophers Michael J. Shapiro and Sam Okoth Opondo. Created in the UCSC Contemporary Print Media Research studios at UCSC, this unique collaboration, as the authors state, heeds “ Rancière’s conception of images as active and treat their woodcuts and prints as imagistic inhabitations that short circuit the desire for operative images that represent reality as it is or attempts to faithfully illustrate our essays…”A

Janet Chen’s film, Asian Bitches Speak, will have its world premiere at the 40th VC Film Festival/ Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival 2024 on May 5, 2024. It tells the story of a mother-daughter journey that explores mental health and healing from intergenerational trauma amidst the rise in anti-Asian hate. The film was prompted by a violent verbal anti-Asian hate incident that Chen’s immigrant mother, Diana, survived on 4th of July, 2020 at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Chen earned her MFA in Film and Digital Media/Social Documentation from UCSC in 2023.

The Digital Arts and New Media (DANM) program is showcasing the students’ best work in its annual MFA exhibition. Entitled Embodiments, the show features multimedia exhibits including visual novels, games and virtual reality as explorations into identity. The exhibition will be open for two weeks starting on April 26. It will kick off with a reception at 4:00 PM April 26 to celebrate its opening.

The Environmental Art & Social Practice (EASP) MFA looks at the intersection of the arts in terms of climate change and other systemic conflicts. This year’s MFA show is the second ever and features work from seven artists. “They are a cohort of artistic researchers,” says Lecturer Yolande Harris, who organized the exhibition. Search Party is the culminating exhibition of the EASP MFA program.

After nearly eight years at UCSC and 35 years of working in academia as a staff member and instructor, Chris Cain, who’s been the technical director in Film and Digital Media, is retiring. Chris has supported staff, faculty, and students in classrooms and studios within the department. He upgraded many facilities and oversaw the construction and design of new facilities. Accomplishments include installation of digital cinema projection, Surround Sound systems, A/V touchscreen control, motion capture, Studio LED lighting, and lecture capture in classrooms. Chris says so long, farewell, and Fiat Slug! “