Alumni in the News: Nova Jiang
Nova Jiang – MFA, Design Media Arts, 2009
Media Artist Nova Jiang received her M.F.A. from the UCLA Department of Design Media Arts in 2009. She was born in China, grew up in New Zealand, and currently lives and works in Los Angeles. Jiang creates work that encourages the tactile and creative participation of the audience—resulting in structurally open systems in which joy, disorder, and improvisation can thrive. Jiang’s work has been exhibited at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, ICC, Tokyo, and many other prestigious arts venues around the world.
In the fall of 2014, the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture (UCLA Arts) and the Westfield Group announced the inaugural Art in Public Spaces competition. Born out of a desire to enrich the cultural dialogue and environment in some of Southern California’s most popular and trafficked public destinations, UCLA Arts and Westfield joined forces to expand real-world opportunities for students and alumni. Jiang was selected the winner of the first Art in Public Spaces competition; her piece, Red Car, is her first large-scale public installation.
Red Car (22’ x 15’6”, aluminum) pays tribute to the Pacific Electric, Los Angeles’s once ubiquitous mass transit system, and the largest electric railway system in the world during the 1920s. The sculpture takes the form of an injection-molded toy assembly kit of the last red car trolley to traverse the San Fernando Valley Line, the terminal station, which was located near the site for The Village at Westfield Topanga.
“There was a lot I needed to learn,” said Jiang, “from coming to grips with the reality of the site’s design constraints to finding the right fabricator. Westfield and UCLA have provided great support and guidance throughout the process.”
The UCLA Arts and Westfield Group collaboration demonstrates a strong commitment to the care