Meet 5 UC San Diego Artists Bridging Creativity, Science and Technology

Their tools may look different — cameras, thread, clay — but their studios function as experimental laboratories where ideas are tested. Graduate students in the Department of Visual Arts are grappling with questions of cultural displacement, exploring the boundaries between the natural and artificial world, reframing transgender visual culture in Latin America and more.

Once a year, the campus and community are invited to explore the research and artistic practice of more than 25 MFA and Ph.D. students. The 2026 Graduate Open Studios event will be held from 2-6 p.m. at the Visual Arts Facility and SME Gallery on Feb. 28. 

Immediately following from 6-8 p.m., join the opening celebration of Mandeville Art Gallery’s exhibition, “Faith Ringgold: Full Circle, The Teachings and Her Legacy.” These creative gatherings represent just two of hundreds of art and performance events that happen across UC San Diego, all part of ArtsConnect.

As a preview of what’s in store, we caught up with five students to learn more about what drives their creative work.

Shloka Dhar | Bringing back the mark of the hand

In the summer of 2024, Shloka Dhar visited her homeland — Kashmir, India — for the first time. “I wanted to set foot on the land.”

As an MFA student, her work confronts the violence and mass displacement of Kashmiri Pandits in the 1990s — events her own family endured. “Home has always been an abstract concept that I’m trying to recreate in my work,” said Dhar.

During her visit she learned about traditional copper work as well as ari embroidery, a traditional Kashmiri technique that creates intricate chain-stitch designs in wool thread. She is exploring how these traditional practices can be preserved; “I want to help sustain the mark of the hand and preserve traditional craft in the era of automation.”

Ari embroidery plays an important role in Dhar’s next project, which explores how bodies can carry memories across generations – a concept known as transgenerational epigenetic inheritance. Her forthcoming large-scale installation will feature a network of neurons connected by branching dendrites, with embroidery functioning as a kind of skin.

“When injury happens, a scar is left, acting as a memory. How can we repair these areas of trauma?” she asks. Dhar studied muscle stem cells as an undergraduate biology student and hopes to continue neuroscience and memory research in a lab at UC San Diego to inform her artistic practice. “I use the science as a backbone for the way I visually conceptualize ideas of regeneration.”

Xelestial Moreno-Luz | Asserting agency in transgender visual culture

“I have so many negatives to scan still,” says Xelestial Moreno-Luz, a visual arts MFA student, as she flips through dozens of contact sheets.

As a photographer and filmmaker, Moreno-Luz travels frequently to document the art and cultural movements of trans/travesti communities in Latin America. While “travesti” is sometimes translated as “transgender woman,” in Latin America the term denotes a distinct political identity tied to movements resisting state violence and advocating for trans and gender-diverse rights.

Through her images, Moreno-Luz seeks to reframe how transgender communities are portrayed and how their knowledge is reproduced. One area of focus includes members of the House and Ballroom scene, an LGBTQ+ subculture in Mexico City where participants form chosen families called houses. Within these houses, members receive mentorship, performance training, protection from violence and emotional support.

Also a filmmaker, Moreno-Luz is producing a film about Natalia Lane, a Mexican trans activist and sex worker who survived a violent attack in 2022 widely reported as an attempted transfemicide. As a precursor to this work, Moreno-Luz created a short film about Lane titled “No estás solas,” which was awarded first place in the documentary category at the 2025 UC San Diego Film Festival.

“My ultimate goal is to expand the way artists and cultural workers within trans travesti communities are seen in visual culture,” Moreno-Luz said. “I’m creating an archive — documenting art, culture and social movements.”

Andrew Wharton | Throwing a wrench in the simulation

Large language models can masquerade as humans in online conversations. Insects like bees and termites can exhibit swarm intelligence that mimics algorithms. Andrew Wharton, an MFA student, finds these connections between humans, nature, culture and technology both curious and inspirational.

As a computer artist, Wharton uses AI to design code that choreographs behaviors for the sculptures he creates. Some of the sculptures are fabricated using 3D printing, while others are made without the use of technology. 

Wharton regards his studio as an experimental laboratory, a space to speculate on the boundaries between the organic and synthetic. There’s a kind of alchemy to his practice, whereby he starts with a concept and breaks down various iterations before landing on the right answer to his creative question. “Alchemy is positioned at the midpoint between mysticism and scientific thought,” he said. “Art leaves room for psychology, narrative, symbol and archetype. Together they complete the experiment.”

As an artist actively probing the profusion and ethics of AI tools, he approaches his work very intentionally. Wharton’s thesis project explores transmutation between human, artificial human and insect. One part of the project involves a four and a half-foot tall modular ceramic 3D-printed sculpture accompanied by an abstract AI video that depicts insects morphing into flowers and vice versa. 

“There are some things I simply couldn’t do without AI,” he said. “But I’m also trying to navigate reliance on technology; it’s a continuum of refining.”

Sarah Rose | A freeze-frame glimpse of climate change

Sarah Rose is captivated by ice – specifically, from Antarctica – and the secrets it holds. As an artist she is exploring what can be learned from afar about the remote locale. To do this, Rose is examining the ways climate proxies, like ice cores or sediment samples, can reveal global links between social and environmental histories.

It was a program at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography that sparked this creative direction for Rose. During a 10-week course offered by the Program for Interdisciplinary Environmental Research (PIER), she took part in a research cruise to learn about biodiversity, helping to collect and document organisms and sediment cores collected from the ocean. Even more unforgettable was the chance to hold ice from Antarctica during a laboratory tour by Professor Jeff Severinghaus.

“I’m fascinated by Antarctica as a site that we only have a surface-level understanding of because it’s so inaccessible,” says Rose, who is pursuing a Ph.D. in art history, theory and criticism with a concentration in art practice. “How can we address problems of distance and proximity through imaging?”

After earning a master’s degree in geography, she began thinking about how photographs serve as a kind of index. Rose’s creative outcomes blend cartography and cyanotypes, collage and digital photographs and more to spur conversations about climate change. “There’s this indexicality of a photograph; it’s a tool that we have as artists that scientists often use,” explains Rose. “While their methods and questions differ, both art and science help us explore how our world works; I’m interested in how these two disciplines interact.”

Coral Pereda Serras | Algorithms as modern magic

Many users don’t understand the algorithm that powers artificial intelligence. They carefully craft an input, which is interpreted by an opaque computational system that remains largely mysterious – almost magical.

This fascinating comparison between technology and the occult is central to Coral Pereda Serras’s work as a Ph.D. candidate who has a concentration in art practice. “Algorithms are the instructions that you give machines to do something, yet they are mostly inaccessible, and that generates a sense of awe,” she explained.

A research-based media artist and designer originally from Spain, Pereda’s work begins with photographs and video, which are transformed into immersive installations. She uses AI as a tool to manipulate images, like pixelating them into abstraction. Sometimes the code itself becomes part of the artwork. All of these steps are done as procedures, or rituals, that reflect on how technology can be perceived as a magical system.

Pereda’s current creative direction was inspired by reading “Caliban and the Witch,” a feminist text that reframes the history of witch hunts as a political and economic strategy to grow capitalism. This literature inspired her dissertation project, combined with intrigue about how images of the environment can function as scientific records. “My goal is to reimagine our current understanding of AI by bringing it closer to magic,” shared Pereda. “And by creating more transparency, maybe we can democratize these systems and hold the people who create them more accountable.”

Learn more about the Department of Visual Arts.