UCLA Plays a Pivotal Role in PST ART: Art & Science Collide
UCLA is the single largest granted institution in this year’s PST Art: Art & Science Collide, a Getty initiative, with nearly $2 million in research and exhibition support. The UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture (UCLA Arts) and the UCLA Film & Television Archive have a prominent, expansive presence with seven programs and exhibitions spanning July 20, 2024, through May 25, 2025. The Fowler Museum at UCLA will kick off this initiative with the exhibition "Sangre de Nopal/Blood of the Nopal," opening to the public on July 21.
PST Art (previously known as Pacific Standard Time) is the largest art event in the United States. This year’s iteration will engage audiences throughout Southern California with the theme of Art & Science Collide. With the support of nearly $20 million in grants from Getty, dozens of cultural, scientific, and community organizations will present more than 60+ exhibitions and an extraordinary spectrum of public programs.
Included among the presenting institutions are UCLA Arts’ two world-renowned museums — the Hammer and the Fowler — two innovative research centers — UCLA Art | Sci Center and UCLA Arts Conditional Studio — and its groundbreaking performing arts program — UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance (CAP UCLA).
The UCLA Film & Television Archive, renowned for its pioneering efforts to preserve and showcase moving image media, will present a 12-night film series in partnership with UCLA Cinema & Media Studies in the School of Theater, Film and Television.
“PST Art is filled with diverse exhibitions and programs that explore our relationship with technology and the natural world and is an invaluable opportunity to deepen the connection between the incredible talent and creativity of our students, staff, and faculty with the wider Los Angeles community," said Lionel Popkin, UCLA Arts interim dean. "UCLA’s presence in this important iteration of PST Art is a testament to the school's commitment to fostering a thriving artistic community while pushing the boundaries of what is possible when the worlds of art and science come together.”
The works presented at UCLA stem from multifaceted research practices deeply engaged with the community, covering topics such as climate change, indigenous knowledge, the burgeoning field of eco-acoustic art, and beyond.
Dozens of esteemed UCLA faculty, staff, and alumni are involved with projects across PST Art: Art & Science Collide such as Amy Adler, Analia Saban, Ann Haeyoung, Candice Lin, Casey Reas, Catherine Opie, Cauleen Smith, Dan Bustillo, Devin Kenny, Gala Porras-Kim, Iman Person, Jennifer Steinkamp, John Divola, Judy Baca, Jules Kris, Lauren Lee McCarthy, Lita Albuquerque, Lucas Blalock, Mercedes Dorame, Pinar Yoldas, rafa esparza, Rebeca Méndez, Rebecca Allen, Refik Anadol, Romi Morrison, Tristan Espinoza, Tyler Yin, Valerie Green, Vasa Mihich, Vija Celmins, Xin Xin, and Zach Blas, among others.
The UCLA Film & Television Archive and the UCLA Cinema & Media Studies Program shine a spotlight on undersung voices from those colliding worlds with its series Science Fiction Against the Margins.
“So much of our understanding of ourselves and our local and global communities is rooted in the stories we create, share, and preserve,” said May Hong HaDuong, associate university librarian and director of the Archive. “Much of this creativity as it relates to moving image media is in peril of being lost, and so many perspectives are often obscured or misrepresented. Our offering in PST Art: Art & Science Collide will highlight voices from the margins in ways the science fiction genre is uniquely suited to hold, beyond the gleam of big-budget Hollywood.”
UCLA is also home to world-renowned scientists at the forefront of addressing some of the most pressing challenges facing society today. This year, UCLA Art | Sci Center’s projects are supported by scientists such as Walter Gekelman, professor emeritus in physics and former director of the Basic Plasma Science Facility; Laurent Bentolila, professor in chemistry and director of the Advanced Light Microscopy and Spectroscopy Lab; Andre Nel, distinguished professor of medicine and director of research of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA; Deepak Rajagopal, professor at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability; and Walter Boyd, professor of law. Additional scientific support is provided by Nobel laureate Andrea Ghez, an astrophysicist at UCLA and PST Art scientific advisor.
The UC System is broadly represented in PST Art: Art & Science Collide with exhibitions at The Beall Center for Art + Technology at UC Irvine; UCR ARTS / California Museum of Photography at UC Riverside; and UC San Diego Visual Arts in partnership with the Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
UCLA’s programming promises to be a highlight of the celebrated initiative. See below for a list of exhibitions and programs, which will begin this summer and continue through spring 2025.
Fowler Museum at UCLA
July 21, 2024–Jan. 12, 2025
Opening program Saturday, July 20, 2024
Sangre de Nopal/Blood of the Nopal is a project that examines the intersection of art and science within the Indigenous Oaxacan diaspora. The cultivation of cochineal — a red dye derived from an insect that lives on the opuntia (prickly pear) cactus — by the Zapotec peoples, and its use by contemporary artists, provide a case study in multi-generational innovation.
At the Fowler, two LA-based fiber artists — Tanya Aguiñiga and Porfirio Gutiérrez — will be featured in an exhibition of new commissions and existing work, alongside Oaxacan textiles from the Fowler collection. This multivocal exhibition will center ancestral knowledge and technical experimentation, and also bring a special focus to immigration and labor justice.
A companion exhibition opening in October 2024 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara will feature the work of Aguiñiga, Gutiérrez, and other contemporary artists, and each exhibition will include a “lab” component, where the language of western science meets traditional ecological knowledge.
On Saturday, July 20, the public is welcome to a celebration in the spirit of Guelaguetza, the Zapotec word for offering or reciprocity. Enjoy an Indigenous welcome and live music.
Fire Kinship: Southern California Native Ecology and Art
Jan. 12, 2025–May 25, 2025
Opening program Saturday, Jan. 11, 2025
Prior to the colonization of Southern California in the 18th century, Native communities throughout the region deployed controlled fire regimes to ensure the well-being of their local ecosystems. Fire-based land management practices ranged from small burns to spur healthy growth, to larger burns that strategically eradicate invasive species and reduce fuel loads (preventing catastrophic natural fires). Fire Kinship counters attitudes of fear and illegality around fire, arguing for a return to Native practices in which fire is regarded as a vital aspect of land stewardship, community wellbeing, and tribal sovereignty.
A selection of baskets, ollas, rabbit sticks, and bark skirts in this exhibition were made possible through the relationship between people, place, and fire. Commissioned video, sculpture, portrait paintings, and installations by contemporary artists such as Weshoyot Alvitre, Emily Clarke, Gerald Clarke Jr., Leah Mata Fragua, and Summer Herrera respond to and rejoin these cultural objects, spurring a dialogue of critique, reflection, and futurity. The exhibition presents a living history that centers the expertise of Tongva, Cahuilla, Luiseño, and Kumeyaay communities past and present. Fire Kinship reintroduces fire as a generative element, one that connects us to our past and offers a collective path toward a sustainable future.
Hammer Museum at UCLA
Breath(e): Toward Climate and Social Justice
Sept. 14, 2024–Jan. 5, 2025
Breath(e): Toward Climate and Social Justice considers environmental art practices that address the climate crisis and anthropogenic disasters and their inescapable intersection with issues of equity and social justice. Conceptualized during the height of the global health crisis and America’s racial reckoning in 2020, Breath(e) explores the ethics of climate policies and geopolitical attitudes impacting marginalized communities around the world, while offering new perspectives on land and indigenous rights of nature.
Organized by co-curators Glenn Kaino and Mika Yoshitake, the exhibition features work by more than 20 artists, including works by Mel Chin, Ron Finley, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Ryoji Ikeda, ikkibawiKrrr, Cannupa Hanska Luger, Yoshitomo Nara, Otobong Nkanga, Garnett Puett, Mika Tajima, Lan Tuazon, and more. The artists’ practices encompass a broad array of mediums, including live bee sculptures, immersive gardens, sound and augmented-reality installations, photography, painting, and multimedia and textile works. Accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, Breath(e) presents poetic and philosophical approaches to urgent environmental and climate justice issues.
UCLA Art | Sci Center
Atmosphere of Sound: Sonic Art in Times of Climate Disruption
Sept. 26, 2024–March 23, 2025
If the scale and complexity of climate change exceeds the limits of human perception, how can artists represent it? Atmosphere of Sound: Sonic Art in Times of Climate Disruption examines how sound-based artists, responding to the climate crisis, have found a unique point of entry to this representational challenge.
Sound art, as a medium, evades and challenges the certainty often associated with the sense of sight. The inherent ambiguities of sound can help audiences understand the rapidly shifting state of the climate and its effects on the physical world.
Co-curated by Victoria Vesna and Anuradha Vikram, the exhibition includes immersive, interactive installations, live performances, sound walks, and videos by 13 artists. Bill Fontana’s site-specific installation Silent Echoes: Dachstein connects UCLA to the bells of Notre Dame in Paris, Dachstein Ice Caves in Austria, and Governor’s Island in New York City. Yolande Harris, Robertina Sebjanic, and Katie Grinnan’s works address the underwater creatures impacted by noise pollution. On the ground, audiences will experience Amber Stucke’s Instructions for Our Love, one of several on-campus sound walks, and performances by artists Patricia Cadavid, Iman Person, and Sholeh Asgary, all meant to activate the campus environment to engage audiences in deep reflection on the climate crisis. A way finding app is developed by the center to help the audiences experience the various locations on campus.
UCLA Film & Television Archive in partnership with the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television’s Cinema & Media Studies Program
Science Fiction Against the Margins
Oct. 4 through early December
Science Fiction Against the Margins explores what happens when the science fiction genre extends outside of Hollywood and into independent and international filmmaking productions that illuminate cultural difference, political injustice, social inequality, and speculative futures.
Sci-fi films are typically dominated by Hollywood’s action-driven melodramas and state-of-the-art spectacles featuring a heteronormative star who will restore social order, whether on Earth or in space. Science Fiction Against the Margins challenges these conventions by considering how filmmakers have repurposed established tropes to privilege alternative representations of race and ethnicity, gender politics, and national identity. "From Georges Méliès's A Trip to the Moon (France, 1902) to Nuotama Bodomo's Afronauts (US, 2014), these films reveal another side to the sci-fi film genre," said Chon Noriega, distinguished professor of the UCLA Department of Film, Television and Digital Media.
The film series spans 12-night this fall, bringing together films, narrative shorts, and television programs from around the globe, complemented by conversations and Q&As with filmmakers, academics, and critics. Highlights include Alex Rivera’s Sleep Dealer (US/Mexico, 2008), Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman’s Neptune Frost (US/Rwanda, 2021), and the work of Palestinian video artist Larissa Sansour.
UCLA Arts Conditional Studio, presented at Human Resources
Art and the Internet in LA: Energy, Labor, Material
Oct. 5, 2024–Oct. 27, 2024
In the past 50 years, the internet has grown from a military research project to the ubiquitous information backbone of our world. Even as the early web took off, few pundits would have predicted exactly how tightly woven into our lives the internet would become.
Art and the Internet in LA invites a roster of contemporary artists living and working in Los Angeles to respond to the 50-year history of artists creating work on and with the internet, often shaping it through their interventions. The utopian ideas and art of the early internet have been lost to cynicism, financialization, and exploitation.
Public discussions re-examine this history and open new futures by creating accessible online content, exploring digital privacy, measuring and mitigating the energy and environmental costs of the web, and creating local networks for communities without internet access.
UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance (CAP UCLA)
Live Night: Cruising Bodies, Spirits, and Machines
Dec. 7
CAP UCLA and REDCAT co-present Live Night: Cruising Bodies, Spirits, and Machines, a celebratory evening at the iconic 1,600-seat United Theater on Broadway. Live Night closes PST ART Weekends, featuring various experimental performances by rafa esparza, MUXX collective, among others.
Live Night is inspired by REDCAT's exhibition All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace, which rethinks artificial intelligence through Indigenous, Brown, and Queer perspectives.
Press contacts
UCLA: Jessica Wolf, jwolf@stratcomm.ucla.edu
UCLA Arts (Art | Sci Center and Conditional Studio): Sean Arenas, sean.arenas@arts.ucla.edu
Fowler Museum: Erin Connors, erinconnors@arts.ucla.edu
Hammer Museum: Santiago Pazos, spazos@hammer.ucla.edu
UCLA Film & Television Archive: Marisa Soto, msoto@cinema.ucla.edu
CAP UCLA: Lisa Bellamore, lbellamore@gmail.com
Program Credits
Fowler Museum
Sangre de Nopal/Blood of the Nopal: Tanya Aguiñiga & Porfirio Gutiérrez en Conversación/in Conversation is organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara and developed in collaboration with the Fowler Museum at UCLA. The curatorial team includes Dalia Garcia, program director and interim executive director, Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara; Audrey Lopez, director and curator of public art, Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy; John Connelly, gallery director, Atkinson Gallery at Santa Barbara City College. Tanya Aguiñiga and Porfirio Gutiérrez served as artist advisors to the project. Additional project support has been provided by Hector Manuel Meneses Lozano, director, Museo Textil de Oaxaca; and Frederick Janka, artist advocate, cultural producer, and president, Board of Trustees, Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara.
Sangre de Nopal/Blood of the Nopal is among more than 60 exhibitions and programs presented as part of PST ART. PST ART is presented by Getty. Additional funding is provided by the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, the Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation, and the Pasadena Art Alliance. With special thanks to the Museo Textil de Oaxaca.
Fire Kinship: Southern California Native Ecology and Art is organized by the Fowler Museum at UCLA and is curated by Daisy Ocampo Diaz (Caxcan), assistant professor of history at CSUSB; Michael Chavez (Tongva), archaeological collections manager, NAGPRA project manager, Fowler Museum; and Lina Tejeda (Pomo), graduate student research assistant, CSUSB. Fire Kinship is among more than 60 exhibitions and programs presented as part of PST ART. PST ART is presented by Getty. Additional funding is provided by the Pasadena Art Alliance.
Hammer Museum
Breath(e): Toward Climate and Social Justice is organized by Glenn Kaino and Mika Yoshitake, independent curators, with Jennifer Buonocore-Nedrelow, PST ART Fellow.
Breath(e): Toward Climate and Social Justice is among more than 60 exhibitions and programs presented as part of PST ART. PST ART is presented by Getty.
The exhibition is presented in partnership with Conservation International.
Major support is provided by Alice and Nahum Lainer and Eugenio Lopez Alonso. Generous support is provided by VIA Art Fund. Additional support provided by Michael Silver.
UCLA Art | Sci Center
Atmosphere of Sound: Sonic Art in Times of Climate Disruption is among more than 60 exhibitions and programs presented as part of PST ART. PST ART is presented by Getty. Curated by Victoria Vesna, Director of the UCLA Art | Sci Center, and Anuradha Vikram, Lecturer in the Department of Art and Design Media Arts, the exhibition features newly commissioned installations, live performances, and sound walks by Sholeh Asgary, Patricia Cadavid, Bill Fontana, Katie Grinnan, Yolande Harris, Anna Nacher, Joel Ong, Iman Person, Robertina Sebjanic, Amber Stucke, Rachel Mayeri, and Nina Weisman.
UCLA Arts Conditional Studio
Art and the Internet in LA: Energy, Labor, Material, curated by Chandler McWilliams, Director of the UCLA Arts Conditional Studio, in collaboration with PST ART Fellow Audrey Min, is among more than 60 exhibitions and programs presented as part of PST ART. PST ART is presented by Getty. The show includes newly commissioned work by Ahree Lee, Alice Yuan Zhang, American Artist, Ann Haeyoung, Danielle Dean, Devin Kenny, KCHUNG, LA Crypto Party, Romi Morrison, TTZ (Tiny Tech Zines), and Xin Xin, along with a public programming and film series organized by Casey Reas.
UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance (CAP UCLA)
Live Night: Cruising Bodies, Spirits, and Machines is organized by Edgar Miramontes, Executive and Artistic Director, CAP UCLA and Daniela Lieja Quintanar, Chief Curator and Deputy Director, Programs, REDCAT.
Live Night: Cruising Bodies, Spirits, and Machines is among more than 60 exhibitions and programs presented as part of PST ART. PST ART is presented by Getty.
The performance event is presented in partnership with REDCAT as part of PST ART Weekends.
UCLA Film & Television Archive
Science Fiction Against the Margins is organized by the UCLA Film & Television Archive and will take place at the Billy Wilder Theater inside the Hammer Museum. The core curatorial team includes Chon Noriega, distinguished professor of the UCLA Department of Film, Television and Digital Media; Maya Montañez Smukler, head of the UCLA Film & Television Archive Research and Study Center; Paul Malcolm, Senior Public Programmer at the UCLA Film & Television Archive; and Nicole Ucedo, Programming Coordinator at the UCLA Film & Television Archive.
Science Fiction Against the Margins is among more than 60 exhibitions and programs presented as part of PST ART. PST ART is presented by Getty. Additional funding and support provided by the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. The Science Fiction Against the Margins anthology is a collaboration between the UCLA Film & Television Archive, The Chicano Studies Research Center Press, and the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television.
About the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture
The UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture plays a vital role in the cultural and artistic life of UCLA and of the broader community. Guiding our mission is the belief that the arts are not only an essential part of the cognitive, critical, inquisitive life of a public research university, but that the practice and presence of the arts are a cornerstone of the creative, innovative thinking, and collaborative approaches that the 21st century demands. One of 12 prestigious professional schools at UCLA, the School of the Arts and Architecture offers leading programs in four degree-granting departments: Architecture and Urban Design, Art, Design | Media Arts, and World Arts and Cultures/Dance. The School also houses 10 research centers, the Visual and Performing Arts Education Program, two internationally acclaimed museums — the Fowler and the Hammer — and one ground-breaking performing arts program — UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance. This unique, rich array of research centers, museums, and performing arts programs broaden and enhance the experiences of our students and faculty.
About the Fowler Museum
The Fowler Museum at UCLA explores global arts and cultures with an emphasis on Africa, Asia, the Pacific, and the Indigenous Americas — past and present. The Fowler enhances understanding of world cultures through dynamic exhibitions, publications, and public programs, informed by interdisciplinary approaches and the perspectives of the cultures represented. The work of international contemporary artists is presented within complex frameworks of politics, culture, and social action.
About the Hammer Museum
The Hammer Museum is part of the School of the Arts and Architecture at UCLA, and offers exhibitions and collections that span classic to contemporary art. It holds more than 50,000 works in its collection, including one of the finest collections of works on paper in the nation, the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts. Through a wide-ranging, international exhibition program and the Made in L.A. biennial, the Hammer highlights contemporary art since the 1960s, especially the work of emerging and under - recognized artists. The exhibitions, permanent collections, and nearly 300 public programs annually— including film screenings, lectures, symposia, readings, music performances, and workshops for families—are all free to the public.
About UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance (CAP UCLA)
UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance (CAP UCLA) is the public-facing research and presenting organization for the performing arts at the University of California, Los Angeles — one of the world’s leading public research universities. We are housed within the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture along with the Hammer and Fowler museums. The central pursuit of our work as an organization is to sustain the diversity of contemporary performing artists while celebrating their contributions to culture. We acknowledge, amplify and support artists through major presentations, commissions, and creative development initiatives. Our programs offer audiences a direct connection to the ideas, perspectives and concerns of living artists. Through the lens of dance, theater, music, literary arts, digital media arts, and collaborative disciplines, informed by diverse racial and cultural backgrounds, artists and audiences come together in our theaters and public spaces to explore new ways of seeing that expands our understanding of the world we live in now.
About the UCLA Film & Television Archive
A division of UCLA Library, the Archive is internationally renowned for rescuing, preserving, and showcasing moving image media and is dedicated to ensuring that the visual achievements of our time are available for information, education, and enjoyment. The Archive has over 450,000 film and television holdings conserved in a state-of-the-art facility at The Packard Humanities Institute Stoa in Santa Clarita, CA, that is designed to hold materials ranging from nitrate film to digital video at all preservation standards. Many of the Archive’s projects are screened at prestigious film events around the globe.
The Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer Museum is the home of the UCLA Film & Television Archive's public programs. The theater is among a handful of venues nationwide able to exhibit an entire century's worth of moving images in their original formats. From the earliest silent films requiring variable speed projection all the way up to cutting-edge digital cinema, the Wilder can accommodate an array of screen technologies.
About PST ART
Southern California’s landmark arts event, PST ART, returns in September 2024, presenting more than 60 exhibitions from organizations across the region exploring the intersections of art and science, both past and present. PST ART is presented by Getty. For more information about PST ART: Art & Science Collide, please visit pst.art.
