Alumni Spotlight: Fall 2024
UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture alumni from all four academic departments — Architecture and Urban Design, Art, Design Media Arts, and World Arts and Cultures/Dance — submitted updates about their work and accomplishments since graduating from UCLA. This column features their recent achievements, awards, projects, and other honors as well as upcoming events and exhibitions.
Achievements and Awards
UCLA Diver by Christine Kao.
Christine Kao B.A. ‘23 (Design Media Arts) won third place in the Sports/Adventure category of the 2024 American Photographic Artists (APA) Awards for UCLA Diver. The photo was taken on January 31, 2020, during Kao’s first year at UCLA.
Diana Nawi B.A. ‘06 (Art) was hired by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) as a curator of contemporary art. Nawi, who has worked independently for several years, has organized several acclaimed U.S. biennials in the past five years, including the 2023 edition of Made in L.A. at the Hammer Museum at UCLA (with Pablo José Ramirez) and 2022’s Prospect.5 in New Orleans (with Naima J. Keith). She has also curated solo exhibitions for artists such as Mark Bradford, Michael Rakowitz, Adler Guerrier, Haroon Mirza, John Akomfrah, and Shana Lukter.
A photo of Heather Coker Hawkins. Courtesy of Hawkins.
Heather Coker Hawkins M.F.A. ‘12 (Dance) has taught Time-Based Art and Cinema Studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, since 2019. In spring of 2024, Hawkins received a scholarship through the Denbo Center for Humanities and the Arts to attend the 2024 Digital Humanities Summer Institute at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. This experience directly impacted the online interactive component of her video installation, Quest for Resolve, which won second place at the University Film and Video Association Conference New Media Exhibition at Cleveland State University. Quest for Resolve is in the upcoming group exhibition, titled Form 2024, at the Czong Institute for Contemporary Art (CICA) Museum in South Korea.
Lisa Parra M.F.A. ‘96 (Dance) received a MAP Fund 2024 grant for family reunion side two, a solo interdisciplinary dance work, based on an audio recording of a family reunion, that archives a history and shines a spotlight on the artist’s first generation and immigrant relatives’ presence that helped create the vibrant communities in Boyle Heights, California. MAP Fund is one of the longest running, private funding sources championing cultural equity and formal innovation in performance practices. In 2024, they awarded $2.883 million across 93 projects.
Michele Rosenbaum B.A. ‘00 (Art) has spent the last few years working to elevate artists, STEAM education, and the city of Portland, Oregon. While continuing her own art practice, she is also serving her second year as chair of the Riverdale School District Board. With the Oregon chapter of the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), Rosenbaum is a Founding Circle Member and sits on the steering committee. NMWA Oregon supports the National Museum’s mission to promote the work of emerging Northwest women artists. Rosenbaum is proud to serve on the Board of Trustees at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI), promoting the connection between science and the arts. Ever since taking Chris Burden's class at the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture, she has loved the magic of inquiry. Burden taught the class from a science inquiry point of view, and it was transformational for Rosenbaum.
We Buy Houses Ca$h by Raymundo Reynoso.
Raymundo T. Reynoso M.F.A. ’01 (Design Media Arts) has been named a recipient of the 2024 Fellowship for Visual Artists (FVA) by the California Community Foundation. Established in 1988 with a $3 million gift from the Getty Foundation, FVA is one of Los Angeles’ top arts fellowships supporting artists' careers. This year, 375 applicants were reviewed by a panel of seven distinguished artists and art professionals, considering each artist's career and future promise.
Exhibitions
Between All the Words, My Voice Is But a Whisper, 2023, acrylic on canvas, 48 x 48 in. (Courtesy of the artist)
Amir H. Fallah M.F.A. ‘05 (Art) is featured in two upcoming group exhibitions. Infinite Regress: Mystical Abstraction from the Permanent Collection and Beyond opens Sept. 20 at Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City. Spanning more than a century, this exhibition addresses modern humankind’s search for balance within nature and technology. At Compound in Long Beach, Calif., When The Veil Thins opens Sept. 19. Focusing on materiality, process, absence, presence, and the relationship with the unconscious, When The Veil Thins seeks to illuminate the multifaceted ways in which artists grapple with personal and collective experiences, ultimately finding avenues of expression and healing through art-making.
Anna Boyiazis B.A. ‘89 (Art) is prominently featured in two World Press Photo special exhibitions. Both include photographs from her long-term project, Finding Freedom in the Water. World Press Photo Foundation is an independent, non-profit organization based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Resilience - stories of women inspiring change is on view through Sept. 18 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, and highlights the resilience and challenges of women, girls, and communities around the world. The second exhibition, Celebrating Communities, opens Sept. 14 in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. Boyiazis’ Finding Freedom in the Water documents women in the Zanzibar Archipelago. Many of these women do not know how to swim, having been discouraged from learning the skill due to the absence of modest swimwear. To address this issue, a local initiative called the Panje Project began offering swimming lessons to local youth in 2011.
The Sadness of Chance by Gwen Manfrin.
Gwen Manfrin B.A. ‘77 (Art) was featured alongside Linda Christensen in the exhibition In This Moment at the Andrew Schwartz Gallery in San Francisco. Manfrin’s work was also featured in the Water Street Gallery group exhibition Memory Lanes & Fairy Tales.
Jia Yi Gu M.Arch. ‘14 (Architecture and Urban Design) co-curated with Kate Yeh Chiu the exhibition Material Acts: Experimentation in Architecture and Design, as part of Getty’s PST ART: Art and Science Collide, at Craft Contemporary in Los Angeles. Material Acts examines the role of nature as a starting point for material experimentation in the domains of architecture, craft, and science. The exhibition will also examine how contemporary design practices mobilize, confound, and generate natures, whether through simulating mechanics or growing biological matter. It opens Sept. 28. Gu also joined Harvey Mudd College as assistant professor of architecture.
Interviews
Photo courtesy of Job Piston.
Job Piston M.F.A. ‘10 (Art) was recently featured in Paper Magazine for a staged documentary photography portfolio about a young singer’s coming of age in Hollywood. Piston was also awarded a Frame Contemporary Art Finland Travel Grant for 2024 and was selected for a Banff Artist in Residency program in Alberta, Canada, in May 2024.
Sandy Bleifer B.A. ‘62 (Art) has work archived at the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art. Her work in the revitalization of downtown Los Angeles is archived at USC Special Collections as part of its Los Angeles history collections. The Venice Heritage Museum recently interviewed Bleifer about Venice’s diverse artistic history and its impact on her work. She is currently in the process of restoring her mural in Encino, Calif., originally painted in 1975.
Projects
Photo courtesy of Norell/Rodhe.
Daniel Norell M.Arch. '06 (Architecture and Urban Design) and his practice Norell/Rodhe have developed Raamland, a transformation of a slumbering site in the center of Bruges, Belgium, into a generous community garden. The project acts as a testbed that speculates about the past and future of the site and the surrounding city by incorporating found materials and overlooked histories. The project is commissioned by Bruges Triennial 2024: Spaces of Possibility.
Elisa Krug B.A. ‘21 (Art) founded an embroidery business for interior design. Krug does custom embroidery from hand-drawn and digital designs. Krug is currently working on a pillow line that will soon be released.
Header image: UCLA Diver by Christine Kao.
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