Faculty News: Fall 2026
The creative and scholarly contributions of the UCLA Arts community mine the complexities of the human condition, ask essential questions of our time, and expand the potential of creativity. Explore exhibitions, research, publications, special projects, and more from UCLA Arts' esteemed faculty.
Exhibitions and a World Premiere
Installation view of Remember Me. Krajnak's photos are on the left while a photo by Edward Weston is on the right. (Courtesy of the artist).
Tarrah Krajnak, associate professor in the department of art, is included in the three-person exhibition Our Bodies Have Been Bridges, alongside Laura Aguilar and Koyoltlintzli, at Autograph in London. The exhibition brings together three feminist artists who each use their body to bridge personal and collective memory, indigenous knowledge and relationships to land. It’s on view through Feb. 16, 2027. Krajnak's portfolio Master Rituals II: Weston's Nudes is also on view in Remember Me at the Bourse de Commerce, Pinault Collection, in Paris. The exhibition celebrates the 200th anniversary of the invention of photography and is on view through Jan. 17, 2027.
Victoria Marks's latest work, A Deer Walks into a Dance, had its world premiere at The Nimoy. (Jason Williams / CAP UCLA)
Victoria Marks, professor in the department of world arts and cultures/dance, presented the world premiere of her latest work, A Deer Walks into a Dance, at the UCLA Nimoy Theater on Oct. 16 and 17. Using movement, text, and the deconstruction of a (bad) joke, Marks and four performers—Rian Alcid, Maya Billig, Karen Chuang, and Aaron Mason—morphed into multiple identities, propelled by original music by Simon Chernow.
Installation view of In These Times: Recent Acquisitions at MOCA at MOCA Grand Avenue. (Courtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA). Photo by Jeff McLane)
Rebecca Morris, professor in and chair of the department of art, has a solo exhibition, #35, on view at Bortolami Gallery in New York through Dec. 19, 2026. Morris is also included in the group exhibition In These Times: Recent Acquisitions at MOCA at MOCA Grand Avenue in Los Angeles. On view through Jan. 3, 2027, the exhibition surveys artworks added to the museum’s collection over the past five years, highlighting major purchases and gifts within MOCA’s broader holdings. The exhibition is organized thematically by gallery, with rooms devoted to representations of L.A., group portraiture, recent developments in abstract painting, and works that dwell in obsessive detail.
Alice Piller's Held by Light is currently on view at Kings Road Park in West Hollywood. (Jon Viscott)
Alicia Piller, lecturer in the department of art, has a public art installation, Held by Light, currently on view at Kings Road Park in West Hollywood. Commissioned by the City of West Hollywood and installed in August 2026, the work features five biomorphic concrete sculptures that explore interconnectedness, transformation, resilience, and the relationship between organic forms and the built environment. The installation incorporates solar-powered lighting and reflects Piller's ongoing exploration of cellular structures, material memory, and the interconnectedness of living systems. Held by Light is on view through May 2027.
Installation of view of Cosmo Whyte: Under the Quiet, Beyond the Eye at Stamps Gallery. (Courtesy of the artist)
Cosmo Whyte, associate professor in the department of art, has a survey exhibition at Stamps Gallery, which is part of the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan. On view through Dec. 12, 2026, Cosmo Whyte: Under the Quiet, Beyond the Eye brings together drawing, sculpture, installation, and research-driven works that examine two recurring ideas in Whyte’s practice: the archive as a generative site of exploration, and migration as an unfinished arc of motion and reinvention. Whyte’s Jamaican heritage and experience living in Atlanta, Ann Arbor, Chicago, Florida, and Los Angeles inform his explorations of Black identity, migration, displacement, and belonging.
Awards and Fellowships
Alex Ungprateeb Flynn, associate professor in the department of world arts and cultures/dance, has been awarded a 2026–27 fellowship at the Käte Hamburger Centre for Advanced Study at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany. During the fellowship, Flynn will develop Ghost Archives, Thai Contemporary Art: Silenced Heritage, Spectral Aesthetics, and Diasporic Disinheritance, an interdisciplinary research project examining how ghosts and spirits become agents of cultural memory, political contestation, and alternative futures in contexts where official histories are censored or suppressed.
Lauren Lee McCarthy, professor in the department of design media arts, was awarded a California Arts Council Established Artist Fellowship. The program uplifts and celebrates California artists across all disciplines and traditions, highlights their excellence, and acknowledges their leadership in shaping traditional and contemporary cultures.
The relationship between the past and present in American life is a defining feature of McMillian’s art. (John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation)
Rodney McMillian, professor in the department of art, has been recognized as a 2026 MacArthur Fellow. The prestigious fellowships, commonly known as “genius grants,” are awarded annually to individuals across the sciences, arts, and humanities who demonstrate exceptional creativity, dedication, and potential for future innovation. McMillian works across a variety of media, from sculpture and painting to video and performance, often incorporating thrifted and discarded domestic objects, political speeches, songs, and other historical source material.
Janet O’Shea, professor in the department of world arts and cultures/dance, received the Dance Studies Association's 2026 Outstanding Scholarly Research in Dance Award. This award honors an exceptional scholar or leader for sustained contributions to dance research. The award was conferred at the Dance Studies Association’s annual conference last month.
Cauleen Smith received this year’s 2026 Outstanding Alumni Achievement from the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. (Todd Cheney / UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television)
Cauleen Smith, professor in the department of art, received the 2026 Outstanding Alumni Achievement Award from the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. Smith also presented at the conference Black Portraiture[s]: Los Angeles: The Black Built Environment, co-hosted by UCLA, New York University, and Getty. The conference examined the historicity and rich panoply of the Black built environment, both physical and imagined.
Research and Publications
Lora Cawelti, lecturer in the Visual and Performing Arts Education (VAPAE) program, co-wrote the paper “From promise to practice: gendered labor divisions in STEAM activities” alongside colleagues at UC Irvine. The study examines how gendered labor divisions persist or are challenged in STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) education through the design and use of educational toolkits.
Ayasha Guerin's Black Ecologies of Zone A will be available for pre-order in November 2026. (Courtesy of Ayasha Guerin)
Ayasha Guerin, assistant professor in the department of world arts and cultures/dance, will publish the Black Ecologies of Zone A: More-Than-Human Relations of New York's Colonial Shoreline in April 2027 from Duke University Press. In Black Ecologies of Zone A, Guerin examines how the intertwined forces of colonialism, racial capitalism, and environmental transformation produced New York City’s coastal flood zones. Seen through the lens of Black ecologies, flooding is not a natural disaster, but a condition deliberately imposed through historical processes of landmaking, labor exploitation, and ecological disruption.
Ayala Levin, associate professor in the department of architecture and urban design, has two new publications. “The Location of Theory: Settler Colonial Knowledge Production, Among Other Interstices of Empire, and South–South Exchange” was published in Architecture, an international, peer-reviewed, open-access journal focused on architectural research and published quarterly online by the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI). Levin also co-edited a collection of essays, The Region: Architectural Histories of a Naturalized Concept, available on Aggregate, a website dedicated to architectural history and theory.
Interviews
“People are often surprised that I’m teaching within architecture because I’m more well-known for the work I’ve done in fashion and costume design," Koerner says. (Gregg Segal / UCLA Magazine)
Julia Koerner, associate adjunct professor in the department of architecture and urban design, was included in the UCLA Magazine story “The Secret Lives of UCLA Professors.” Koerner is known more from her costume design work for films like Black Panther and Wakanda Forever than from her day job of the last 14 years at UCLA. Over the years, Koerner’s projects have included experiments with materials such as glass, sand, and fabric, as she has developed new ways to think about everything from wearable design to building construction.
Peter Lunenfeld, professor in the department of design media arts, discussed artificial intelligence and art with KCRW journalist Zoha Malik. In 2025, Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year was “slop.” AI-generated images are now nearly impossible to miss online, drawing contempt from many observers. But some artists are embracing AI anyway. Malik discussed the topic with Lunenfeld, as well as alumnus, lecturer, and Dataland co-founder Refik Anadol and alumna Maya Man.
Special Projects
At the celebration, Dean Lionel Popkin, left, presented Dana Cuff with certificates of commendation from California State Senator Ben Allen, Assembly Member Rick Chavez Zbur, Supervisor Kathryn Barger, and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. (Sarah M. Golonka / UCLA AUD)
Dana Cuff, distinguished professor in the department of architecture and urban design and founding director of cityLAB-UCLA, celebrated cityLAB’s 20th anniversary with panel conversations and a party in Perloff Hall’s courtyard. The celebration honored cityLAB’s 20 years of impact on cities and communities. Alongside Cuff, speakers included former Los Angeles Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne, journalist and host of the Torched podcast Alissa Walker, and cityLAB co-directors Yang Yang and Emmanuel Proussaloglou, among others.
An overview of the Greg Lynn-designed Guzzi factory, during the opening celebration, in Italy. (AP Photo/ Niccolo’ Lupone)
Greg Lynn, professor in the department of architecture and urban design, designed Italian motorcycle manufacturer Moto Guzzi’s rebuilt home on the Lecco shore of Lake Como, Italy. In a process that has taken almost five years, Lynn devised a project that encompasses both a working factory and a 3,000-square-meter museum. The museum is arranged as a run of tapering, cone-like volumes that step down in height as they meet the piazza, each wrapped in vertical seams of grey metal. The forms read as a small mountain range set against the real one behind.
The new K-Town Archive features recordings and photos from Koreatown and surrounding communities. (UCLA Library Digital Collections)
David Shorter, professor in the department of world arts and cultures/dance, helped develop a new K-Town Archive, which preserves oral histories, photographs and other materials documenting life in and around Koreatown. It is a community-specific sister site of UCLA’s Archive of Healing, allowing Koreatown stories to become part of the larger collection. “What the K-Town Archive brings is real people’s stories in long form, so it's not just little snippets anymore,” Shorter shared with LAist. “You actually get to hear a person, know that these are real humans, and talking from a contemporary moment.”
Header image: The opening for Moto Guzzi's rebuilt home, designed by Professor Greg Lynn, drew over 60,000 people. (Greg Lynn)
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