Visual & Performing Arts

Arts & Culture

The Latest

UC San Diego First Art Practice Ph.D. Candidate to Graduate in June

Seven years ago Katrin Pesch embarked on an academic journey in artistic research and production at the University of California San Diego. An inaugural member of the Ph.D. Art Practice concentration within the Art History, Theory and Criticism doctoral program in the Department of Visual Arts, Pesch will be the first graduate of the program this spring. She will screen her thesis film, “Finding Things I Don’t Want To Find?,” Tuesday, May 31, from 6 to 8 p.m. and June 2 from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Visual Arts Presentation Lab, SME 149. A reading from the written component of her dissertation entitled, “(Im)material Encounters: Ghosts and Objects at the Bancroft Ranch House Museum,” will accompany the screening.

UC San Diego Technology Debuts at California’s Great America in New “Mass Effect”™ Attraction

“Mass Effect: New Earth, A 4D Holographic Journey” opens to the public today and features Near/Far Acoustic Field (NFAF), an audio infrastructure developed by researchers based at the Qualcomm Institute.

UC San Diego Arts and Humanities Awarded Four Hellman Fellowships

The University of California San Diego’s Division of Arts and Humanities significantly increased its presence on the recently released list of 2016 – 2017 Hellman Fellowships, a university program designed to provide financial support to promising faculty for activities that enhance progress toward tenure. Last year’s divisional recipients included an associate professor from the Department of History, but this year four junior faculty earned recognition. Making up one-third of the 12 awardees, they are: Amy Marie Cimini, Department of Music; Deborah Isobel Stein, Department of Theatre and Dance; Matthew Werner Vitz, Department of History; and Alena Williams, Department of Visual Arts.

UC San Diego Playwrights Premiere New Dramas at Wagner New Play Festival

From the experiences of an East African immigrant working as a dishwasher to those of a long-term, loving couple, UC San Diego’s 2016 Wagner New Play Festival features five new plays, May 3 – 12, in The Joan and Irwin Jacobs Theatre District located on the La Jolla campus. Two of the premiere pieces, described as highly personal and powerful, are by award-winning M.F.A. playwrights in the Department of Theatre and Dance.

UC San Diego Visual Arts Kicks Off Anniversary Celebration with ‘Object Type’

Mingling the past with the present, the University of California San Diego’s Department of Visual Arts is embarking on a series of programs to celebrate its upcoming 50th anniversary entitled, “VISUAL ARTS@50: ART INTO LIFE.” Kicking off the celebration is “Object Type,” an exhibition that runs May 3 – 13 in the Visual Arts Gallery, at the SME Building on campus.

UC San Diego Announces Inaugural Directors for the Institute of Arts and Humanities

University of California San Diego’s Division of Arts and Humanities launched a new initiative last fall by establishing the Institute of Arts and Humanities (IAH)—a cultural hub that fortifies academic, administrative and community outreach efforts within the division. Now, the division has appointed the institute’s first new director and associate director—Luis Alvarez and Mark Hanna, respectively. Both are faculty members in the UC San Diego Department of History. They assume their new leadership posts July 1.