2025-26 In Review
An End-of-Year Message From Dean Lionel Popkin
Every year, I am astounded by the ambition and range of work this community makes possible.
When our commencement speaker, alumnus Refik Anadol, told the Class of 2026 that "the creative life is not about finding answers but about learning how to live inside difficult questions," he named something true of our whole community, not only our graduates. It is what our students, faculty, staff, and alumni practice daily: the patience to stay with a hard problem, and the resolve to act rather than wait for the world to settle.
This pragmatic optimism—clear-eyed about real pressures, but unwilling to let them harden into futility—is visible everywhere in the work of this community: exhibitions and performances, research and teaching, programs and partnerships, and the daily choice to create rather than retreat.
The narrative that follows gathers highlights from the past year at UCLA Arts: milestones, honors, and projects from across our four academic departments and visual and performing arts education program, our two museums, and our performing arts center. I hope they leave you, as they leave me, certain that this community is doing exactly what it should: asking better questions and making the future one project at a time.
With appreciation and best wishes for a restful summer,
Lionel Popkin
Dean, UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture
CELEBRATING THE UCLA ARTS CLASS OF 2026
Students in Dickson Court for UCLA Arts' commencement ceremony. (Sarah M. Golonka / UCLA Arts)
On Saturday, June 13, hundreds of students, faculty, staff, friends, and family gathered in Dickson Court to celebrate the Class of 2026 and the culmination of the 2025-26 academic year.
The undergraduate and graduate student speakers—Sarah Lustgarten and Hunter Blackwell—reflected on their time at UCLA and provided insight into the artist and architect's ability to transform society as well as each other.
“You’ll keep creating beauty from impossible starting points, meaning from nothing,” said Lustgarten. “You’ll bring curiosity and poignancy into places that lack it. Wherever you go and whatever you do, you will leave these traces in your wake. And if you behave anyway like you have for the past four years, you will certainly thrive.”
“What separates you all here in front of me from the rest of this very large community at UCLA is…the unique opportunity that we have to steer the cultural directions of our fields by making, thinking, and engaging craft while wielding tools with radical purpose, intention, and judgement,” said Blackwell. “We are capable of bringing things into this world that have never existed before, and that’s a very powerful thing.”
Our keynote speaker, Refik Anadol, an alumnus, visionary media artist, and Dataland co-founder, spoke passionately about how he learned one of life’s most important lessons at UCLA: “Standing here today feels like coming home. I remember looking toward the future and imagining that somewhere out there waiting for me was an answer—and I was wrong,” said Anadol. “One of the most valuable lessons I learned in the studios here at UCLA was that the creative life is not about finding answers but about learning how to live inside difficult questions.”
NEW FACULTY AND TRANSITIONS
This year we welcomed four new faculty members: Troy Montes Michie and Molly Zuckerman-Hartung in the department of art, Sahej Rahal in the department of design media arts, and Rebekah J. Kowal in the department of world arts and cultures/dance.
This year, we are grateful to the faculty who served as chairs: Mariana Ibañez, Rebecca Morris, Eddo Stern, and Janet O’Shea, who led the departments of architecture and urban design, art, design media arts, and world arts and cultures/dance, respectively.
As we begin the new academic year, we welcome Professor Casey Reas, who will succeed Stern as chair of the department of design media arts, and Professor Aparna Sharma, who will succeed O’Shea as chair of the department of world arts and cultures/dance. We are also grateful to Ibañez and Morris, who will continue to lead their respective departments.
A YEAR OF GROWTH AND EVOLUTION
As a public research university committed to creating and applying knowledge for the betterment of our global society, UCLA Arts’ students, faculty, and alumni continued to deliver groundbreaking work and serve our communities while grappling with some of the world’s most pressing challenges.
A curated selection of highlights from their projects and honors is presented below. To explore additional achievements, honors, and projects from the UCLA Arts community, visit our Faculty Spotlight and Alumni Spotlight stories.
Architecture and Urban Design
This year’s Coachella art program unveiled new immersive works, including Visage Brut, a large-scale installation by Benjamin Freyinger and Andrew Holder. (Lance Gerber / Courtesy of Coachella)
This year marked UCLA AUD’s 60th anniversary, as well as cityLAB-UCLA’s 20th anniversary. The department celebrated with a series of events, culminating in Rumble60, which featured AUD People and Places: 60 Years of Design, showcasing projects from across AUD’s global alumni community. AUD looks forward to celebrating cityLAB this fall.
Faculty members Samaa Elimam and Michael Osman organized the exhibition Core Samples to commemorate 60 years of the department. The exhibition brought to light long-hidden work and media drawn from the vaults of AUD. On display was an array of archival materials, including VHS tapes, faculty portraits, 35mm slides of student work, travel photographs, office drawings, and posters.
cityLAB, led by faculty member Dana Cuff, launched the next phase of their groundbreaking “Small Lots, Big Impacts” initiative. The initiative has expanded to include building affordable housing on small parcels of privately owned land. The launch event took place at the AIA-LA headquarters in Los Angeles on May 7. This summer, cityLAB will announce the selected teams for this important initiative.
In New York’s Hudson Valley, Forma’s “House on a Hill” stands out in the best possible way. Its perfectly cubic form is striking, yet feels right at home. The project began when the design firm’s founders, faculty member Miroslava Brooks and Daniel Markiewicz, purchased a nine-acre lot with a central clearing in Hillsdale. The house was covered by Architectural Record, Interior Design Magazine, Dezeen, Dwell, Designboom, and more.
The Met selected faculty member Kutan Ayata's Young & Ayata for redesign of the museum's Nolen Study Room in its Thomas J. Watson Library. The space, which is accessible to the public, will house approximately 5,000 books reflecting the scope of The Met’s collection on new open and browsable shelves.
Alumni Benjamin Freyinger and Andrew Holder designed a large-scale installation for Coachella. The soaring steel tower, titled Visage Brut, is composed of modular boxes that are folded, rolled, cut or warped—just short of losing their structural integrity. Festivalgoers were invited to slow down and look closely at Visage Brut, taking in its intricate surfaces and shifting forms as day turns to dusk in the valley.
Two AUD students—EmaLee Davidson and Nabil Davidson—were among the 25 winners in this year’s Metropolis magazine Future100 competition. The nationwide contest recognizes the top graduating architecture and interior design students in the U.S. and Canada.
Art
Artist and alumnus Eamon Ore-Giron stands in front of his artwork at the Wilshire/La Brea Metro station. (Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
Faculty member Andrea Fraser is featured in the Whitney Biennial in New York, which is among the country’s most influential exhibitions of contemporary American art. This year’s biennial features 56 artists and collectives, including Fraser. Her inclusion, alongside her mother Carmen De Monteflores, was covered by the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Cultured.
Faculty members Cauleen Smith and Anna Sew Hoy are featured in the Venice Biennale. On view through November 22, 2026, the Venice Biennale included 111 participants. This year’s edition features Smith in the exhibition In Minor Keys and Sew Hoy participated as part of Fac Xtra Retreat or FXR.
Faculty member and department chair Rebecca Morris’ exhibition #34 was one of Cultured Magazine’s “15 Must-See L.A. Gallery Shows This Fall.” At Regen Projects, she showcased paintings where forms, patterns, and colors came together in what looked like a found archeological form.
Faculty member Candice Lin is included in the Art21 documentary Realms of the Real. From her Los Angeles studio to museums and galleries worldwide, Lin creates works of art that steam and bubble, emit pungent odors, and invite touch and embodied exploration. Through multi-sensory sculptural installations, the artist crafts fantastical fictions that are grounded in rigorous research of materials involved in complex histories of trade, labor, exploitation, and desire.
On May 21, the department of art’s ceramics area held the 2026 Yummy Bowl Benefit, created by faculty members Candice Lin and Anna Sew Hoy. One hundred percent of the proceeds go directly to UCLA’s Community Programs Office Food Closet. This year’s benefit raised more than $13,000.
Art deco motifs, fossils, and massive drawings of hands are among the installations that will greet riders passing through the three new stations on L.A. Metro’s D Line extension. The underground subway stations, which connect downtown Los Angeles to Beverly Hills, are home to nine site-specific artworks—three by UCLA Arts alumni: Eamon Ore-Giron, Karl Haendel, and Susan Silton.
Alumma Roksana Pirouzmand had a two-site exhibition at OXY ARTS and JOAN. The exhibitions were featured in Impulse Magazine and the New York Times' “5 Standout Shows During Frieze.” “Pirouzmand’s exhibitions at OXY ARTS and JOAN emerge as a compelling meditation on the subtleties of our interconnectedness,” wrote Impulse Magazine.
Design Media Arts
Dataland co-founder and alumnus Refik Anadol stands in the museum’s Data Pavilion. (Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
Faculty member Eddo Stern is working on a new book, The ‘C’ for Connoisseurs Restaurant Guide. It explores the tensions among culinary adventurism, multiculturalism, and foodie fetishization. Due for publication in 2027.
Faculty member Rebeca Méndez’s video installation The Sea Around Us was presented at UCLA’s Broad Art Center and the Hammer Museum. It depicts the legacy of poisonous waste dumping off the Southern California coast in an immersive, cinematic experience across six channels.
Faculty member Jenna Caravello moderated a panel discussion for the Fowler Museum program “Exploring Relooted and the Intersection of Gaming and Repatriation.” The conversation about the video game Relooted included Caravello, game studio Nyamakop, and Fowler curator Erica P. Jones.
Faculty member Mindy Seu published A Sexual History of the Internet. “Seu was having drinks when her friend casually referred to the phone as a sex toy. Think about it: We send nudes or watch porn, it’s vibrating and touch-sensitive. ‘What exactly is sex, and what exactly is technology?’” Seu told the Los Angeles Times when discussing her new publication and performance project.
Alumnus and this year’s commencement keynote speaker Refik Anadol was named one of the hundred most influential people in artificial intelligence by TIME. This June, Anadol, with co-founder Efsun Erkiliç, opened Dataland—the world’s first AI art museum—in downtown Los Angeles.
World Arts and Cultures/Dance
Performance still of jess pretty in Will Rawls’ [siccer]. (Whitney Browne)
Faculty member Victoria Marks was named Culver City’s Artist Laureate. As part of this engagement, Marks led a series of workshops at Alexander West Park. “The people who came got to feel welcomed into the space and spent a few hours together making connections by moving,” wrote Culver City Crossroads.
Faculty member Anurima Banerji received two awards from the American Society for Theater Research. Banerji’s essay, “The Epistemic Politics of Indian Classical Dance,” received Honorable Mention for the Sally Banes Publication Prize, and her book project, The Impossibility of Indian Classical Dance, was selected for a Target Research Area grant.
Faculty member Will Rawls toured [siccer]. Rawls’ choreographic work [siccer], which was also staged at ICA LA, came to Performance Space New York’s Keith Haring Theatre. Rawls was also featured in the Hammer’s Made in L.A. 2025.
Research Professor David Roussève was honored at the Dance Camera West Film Festival (DCWFF). DCWFF showed a selection of films by Roussève. “His films often explore the bittersweetness of life, social justice, and the tough choices women specifically have to endure,” wrote L.A. Dance Chronicle.
Alumna Charm La’Donna will serve as the 2026-27 Alma Hawkins Visiting Chair. During Fall 2026, La’Donna will teach Dance C174B, a project-based course culminating in an end of quarter performance. La’Donna choreographed Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl LX halftime show, as well as Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl LIX halftime performance the year prior. Over 120 million viewers saw the performance, which included alumni dancers Christopher Aguirre and Ellie Pascua.
Impact Through Arts Education
Kevin Kane (center) participated in the plenary panel for RE:DESIGN // RE:IMAGINE. (Andy Aldana / UCLA Extension)
This year, the Visual and Performing Arts Education (VAPAE) Program launched “AE M192CX: Advanced Teaching Artistry Practicum & Certification.” The inaugural cohort of 12 advanced arts education students partnered with UCLA Community School, where each student was paired with a K–12 class and developed an 8-lesson unit plan they taught throughout the quarter.
A new study led by VAPAE Research and Evaluation Specialist Lindsey Kunisaki helps districts learn from the Prop 28 practices of their peers—even if those peers are not their neighbors. The study showed connections among districts similar in student population or structure but sometimes located across the state. The study calls for improvements in Prop 28 reporting and reveals promising practices found across California.
Kunisaki and VAPAE Director Kevin Kane published additional research in late February on how early-career teaching artists develop their teaching practice. The study examines how artists who are new to teaching learn to work in multigenerational classrooms that honor families’ languages and cultures.
Kane participated in the plenary panel at UCLA Extension’s RE:DESIGN // RE:IMAGINE summit. The discussion addressed questions such as how educators are adapting to hybrid and interdisciplinary practices, what a future-ready arts curriculum looks like, and where the most significant gaps currently lie between arts education and creative careers.
DEEPENING OUR LOCAL AND GLOBAL ENGAGEMENT
This year, we continued to engage the campus and region’s diverse audiences through dynamic public programming at our two world-class museums and groundbreaking performing arts center.
UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance (CAP UCLA)
The audience cheers various decisions made during the playing of asses.masses at the UCLA Nimoy Theater. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
CAP UCLA recently announced its 2026–27 season. This season brings artists spanning generations, cultures, and continents to The Nimoy, Royce Hall, and Freud Playhouse. From Akram Khan Company and Kronos Quartet to Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan, Meow Meow, and so many more—these are performances that entertain, inspire, and challenge.
Also launching in the 2026–27 season, Far Away, Here presents U.S. premieres of rarely seen opera works by international creators throughout Europe, Asia, and Latin America. This new initiative establishes vibrant cultural connections between L.A. audiences and contemporary opera worldwide.
STILL/HERE from Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company at Royce Hall received rave reviews. “Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company brings this era-defining work back into the present, where it belongs. But while the work emerged from the AIDS crisis, its reach is far wider,” wrote Stage and Cinema.
Los Angeles Times reviewed asses.masses at The Nimoy. “Our audience voted for the donkeys to enter the circus, at least until they were deemed obsolete and sent to detention centers, which felt uncomfortably of the moment. Such topicality is what drew Edgar Miramontes to the show,” wrote the Los Angeles Times.
L.A. Dance Chronicle reviewed David Rousséve/REALITY’s Becoming Daddy AF at The Nimoy. “Rousséve’s physicality is mesmerizing, not for its bravura but for its total integration of self. There are unselfconscious gestures which are thrown away. Yet these are the most potent movements of the evening,” wrote L.A. Dance Chronicle.
Fowler Museum at UCLA
Installation view of Mountain Spirits at the Fowler Museum. (Elono Schoenholz / Fowler Museum)
At the beginning of this year, the Fowler celebrated the opening of Mountain Spirits: Rice and Indigeneity in the Northern Luzon Highlands, Philippines. This exhibition explores the ancestral knowledge and sustainable practices of the Ifugao people of the northern Philippines. It’s on view through January 2027.
The Fowler Museum is continuing its work on a $1.5 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to establish a university consortium focused on the return of cultural objects to Nigeria. This includes the hiring of two Mellon Fellows who will support research and implementation of this work.
Since fall of last year, the Fowler has presented two landmark exhibitions: Fire Kinship: Southern California Native Ecology and Art and Construction, Occupation.
- Part of Getty’s PST ART: Art & Science Collide, Fire Kinship countered the 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.
- Construction, Occupation presented the work of 24 artists and collectives that engage art’s potential to shape the city through the power of community. Drawing on myriad visual languages and poetics grounded in collective action, the exhibition investigates a radical urban vocabulary that blurs art and activism.
Looking ahead, upcoming exhibitions include:
- Textiles as Monument, opening Sunday, Aug. 9, features three contemporary artists of South Asian descent: Suchitra Mattai, Jagdeep Raina, and Swapnaa Tamhane.Together, they transform textiles of their cultural heritage into memorials for those who have been unrecognized in public displays of historical memory. These artworks question why monuments are made and who is given the power to be remembered.
- Kené: Lines of Healing, Paths of Connection opens this fall. The exhibition invites visitors into the vibrant world of Shipibo-Konibo artist Olinda Silvano. Her intricate kené designs—flowing geometric patterns rooted in ancestral knowledge—are more than visual art: they are pathways of connection, memory, and healing.
Hammer Museum at UCLA
This year’s Gala in the Garden honorees Darren Star (left) and Betye Saar. (Stefanie Keenan / Getty Images for Hammer Museum, Los Angeles)
This year’s Gala in the Garden celebrated UCLA alumni Darren Star and Betye Saar. The event raised $2 million to support the museum’s dynamic, internationally acclaimed exhibitions, and public programs. Saar, who is turning 100 this year, is regarded as one of the most influential artists to emerge out of Los Angeles. For decades, Star has captured the zeitgeist of popular culture, producing groundbreaking television shows including Beverly Hills, 90210, Sex and the City, and Emily in Paris.
The Hammer celebrated its spring exhibitions on April 5, with the opening of Several Eternities in a Day: Form in the Age of Living Materials, Arthur Jafa: The White Album, SPACE IS THE PLACE: Selections from the Hammer Contemporary Collection, and Hammer Projects: Mike Cloud.
The Hammer welcomed two key leadership additions: Michael Wellen is the museum’s new Chief Curator. He comes from Tate Modern, where he was Senior Curator of International Art. Regan Pro is the new Chief of Learning, Engagement, and Research, a new role that will oversee the Hammer’s Public Programs and Academic Programs departments.
Since fall of last year, the Hammer has presented two landmark exhibitions: Made in L.A. 2025 and Five Centuries of Works on Paper: The Grunwald Center at 70:
- Made in L.A. 2025 was the seventh iteration of the Hammer’s signature biennial exhibition that showcases artists practicing throughout the greater Los Angeles area. It featured faculty member Will Rawls and several alumni: Na Mira, Hanna Hur, Carl Cheng, Pat O’Neill, and Beaux Mendes. The Hammer also announced the winners of its Made in L.A. biennial prizes: Ali Eyal won the Mohn Award, Cheng won the Career Achievement Award, and Greg Breda won the Public Recognition Award.
- Five Centuries of Works on Paper marked the 70th anniversary of the Grunwald Center, celebrating its history through a selection of significant works that reflect the collection’s breadth and diversity. It featured nearly 100 works by over 90 artists.
Looking ahead, upcoming exhibitions include:
- Opening Sept 19 is Hammer Projects: Gê Viana. Gê Viana is a visual artist working in collage, sound, video, and installation to explore material culture, oral history, and syncretism within the African diaspora across Brazil.
- Opening Sept. 27, Huguette Caland: A Life in a Few Lines features approximately 150 drawings, paintings, sculptures, and textiles alongside archival materials and ephemera. It presents an artist deeply connected to community, communication, and the idea of home.
- Opening Oct. 11, Mavis Pusey: Mobile Images marks the first major museum survey dedicated to the work and life of Jamaican-born artist Mavis Pusey (1928–2019), featuring over 60 artworks from her prolific 50-year career
TRANSFORMATIONAL PHILANTHROPIC SUPPORT
From left to right, Robert Keller, Carl Meyer, Emily Green, Sheri Singer, Dean Lionel Popkin, and Karen Krygier—all of whom were instrumental in creating the Class of 1983 Jack C. Green Endowed Fellowship in Architecture and Urban Design. (Sarah M. Golonka / UCLA AUD)
Philanthropic support continues to shape what is possible at UCLA Arts. During the past fiscal year, more than $14 million in charitable contributions strengthened every corner of our school, expanding opportunities for students, advancing faculty research and creative practice, supporting exhibitions and performances, and enriching the artistic and academic life of our community.
This year, 1,232 donors, including 233 first-time supporters, contributed to UCLA Arts. Annual giving alone generated more than $2.3 million, providing flexible, immediate support that allows us to respond to new opportunities, invest in programs, and meet evolving needs. In addition, more than $2.4 million was added to endowed funds, helping to support the long-term strength and sustainability of the school.
A highlight from this year was the establishment of the Class of 1983 Jack C. Green Endowed Fellowship in Architecture and Urban Design. More than forty years after graduating from the department, a cohort of AUD alumni have created a lasting tribute to one of their own: Jack C. Green (1956–2023). This endowed fellowship will provide ongoing support for AUD students for generations to come.
Current-use scholarships continued to play an important role for our students, offering financial support that helps them stay focused on their studies, creative work, and research. Together, annual and endowed giving support both what we need now and what we are building for the future.
We’re grateful to our alumni, parents, friends, faculty, staff, and students for their continued support. Thank you for being an essential part of the UCLA Arts community. Every gift, no matter its size, helps ensure that our students, faculty, and programs continue to thrive.
LOOKING AHEAD
In September, we will welcome a new cohort of 276 extraordinary undergraduate and graduate students to campus. UCLA Arts consistently attracts an exceptional pool of applicants. For Fall 2026:
- 82% of our incoming undergraduates are California residents,
- 36% are transfer students,
- and 27% are first generation college students.
We cannot wait to meet them!
We look forward to seeing you on campus next year.
Stay engaged. Use #UCLAarts to stay connected.
