Faculty Spotlight: Fall 2025
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. Read more for a list of recent accolades, exhibitions, performances, publications, special projects, and more.
Exhibitions and Performances
Anuradha Vikram, lecturer in the Department of Art, curated the exhibition The Sky is Always Falling: HIV/AIDS Activists Unleashing Power in Los Angeles Then and Now at the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Advocate & Gochis Galleries. The exhibition highlighted five key ACT UP/LA political actions from 1987-1993 that brought visibility to the HIV/AIDS crisis through a series of demonstrations, protests, sit-ins, and rallies. It featured never-before-seen documents and photographs from ONE Archives at the USC Libraries, alongside original works by artists such as Kang Seung Lee, Marcus Kuiland-Nazario, Reza Abdoh, and Ron Athey.
Bronze work Stray is included in Taylor's exhibition Unkindness at Track 16's East Hollywood location. (Courtesy of Camilla Taylor)
Camilla Taylor, lecturer in the Department of Art, has a solo exhibition, Unkindness, opening at Track 16’s East Hollywood location on Thursday, Nov. 6, from 6–9 p.m. Taylor explores both the vacuum of loss and the emergence into a new world and new self—radically unlike the past. Multiple bronze works—representations of the body—suggest an emptiness, a blackout. Cast from hand-sculpted clay and wax, they function as preservations of something made then lost. The exhibition is on view through Saturday, Jan. 10.
Installation view of Cauleen Smith: Dusk of Dawn at the Harnett Museum of Art at the University of Richmond Museums. (Harnett Museum of Art)
Cauleen Smith, professor in the Department of Art, has several upcoming and ongoing exhibitions around the world. Opening Thursday, Nov. 13, at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town, South Africa, Cauleen Smith: Survey Exhibition brings together experimental films, sculptural objects, drawings, and text-based textiles. Opening Friday, Dec. 12, at the Kestner Gesellschaft in Hanover, Germany, Cauleen Smith: The Volcano Manifesto explores environmental exploitation, extractivism, and the identity-forming processes of the Black diaspora. Smith is also featured in the critically acclaimed group exhibition MONUMENTS at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Los Angeles, on view through Sunday, May 3, 2026, as well as in the solo exhibition Cauleen Smith: Dusk of Dawn at the Harnett Museum of Art at the University of Richmond Museums, on view through Sunday, Dec. 13.
David Roussève’s Becoming Daddy AF had its West Coast premiere at CAP UCLA’s Nimoy Theater. (Jason Williams / CAP UCLA)
David Roussève, research professor in the Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance, premiered his first evening-length solo in more than 20 years, Becoming Daddy AF, at the Kelly Strayhorn Theater in Pittsburgh this September. It had its West Coast premiere at CAP UCLA’s Nimoy Theater in October. Becoming Daddy AF is a meditation on life's purpose created and performed by a queer African American man acutely aware of the finite time he has left on the planet.
Lauren Lee McCarthy M.F.A. '11, professor in the Department of Design Media Arts, is included in the group exhibition Technologies of Relations at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts. Responding to the rapidly advancing technologies that are shaping our daily lives and social fabric, the artists examine how we relate to each other, to our devices, and to our future. Technologies of Relations is on view through Feb. 21, 2026.
Mindy Seu’s A SEXUAL HISTORY OF THE INTERNET comes to MOCA, Los Angeles, on Saturday, Nov. 15. (Gabriel Noguez)
Mindy Seu '13, associate professor in the Department of Design Media Arts, will premiere A SEXUAL HISTORY OF THE INTERNET on Saturday, Nov. 15, at MOCA, Los Angeles. How have technologies shaped and been shaped by sexuality? This version of the story begins with your phone. It’s a polyvocal lecture whose citations are read aloud by the audience—performance as re-citation. Instagram Stories form a script; with enough voices, that script becomes a chorus. Seu asks her audience to reimagine these technologies with her and together break the intended use of these digital tools.
Installation view of FORMA's Commons Reimagined: Collectivity Through Space at the Chicago Architecture Biennial. (Courtesy of FORMA)
Miroslava Brooks, assistant professor in the Department of Architecture and Urban Design, and her practice FORMA were invited to participate in this year’s Chicago Architecture Biennial, SHIFT: Architecture in Times of Radical Change, with their installation titled Commons Reimagined: Collectivity Through Space on view at the Chicago Cultural Center through Feb. 28, 2026. Celebrating ten years as North America’s leading international platform for contemporary architecture, SHIFT presents groundbreaking exhibitions, installations, and programming by over 100 visionary architects, designers, and creative practitioners from around the world.
Installation view of Rebecca Morris' #34 at Regen Projects in Los Angeles. (Courtesy of Rebecca Morris and Regen Projects)
Department of Art Professor and Chair Rebecca Morris’ exhibition #34 was one of Cultured Magazine’s “15 Must-See L.A. Gallery Shows This Fall.” At Regen Projects, Morris showcased paintings where forms, patterns, and colors come together in what looks like a found archeological form.
Stanya Kahn, visiting faculty in the Department of Art, has a solo exhibition, Love Hours: rites and curses, currently on view at Gattopardo in Glendale, Calif. Love Hours features new works made between 2023-2025. This two-room installation includes a new 4-minute animation, paintings and ceramic, and resin and wood sculptures. Khan’s film, No Go Backs, is included in the UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art exhibition Desperate, Scared, But Social, the 2025 iteration of the California Biennial.
Installation view of Radical Geographies featuring Tarrah Krajnak. (Cindy Dillingham / Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art)
Tarrah Krajnak, associate professor in the Department of Art, is included in several exhibitions, including Radical Geographies: possibilities of the imaged landscape at Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art, Chaffey College, in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif, on view through Nov. 8; Tough Skin, Soft Ribs, Light Work at Jeffrey J. Hoone Gallery in Syracuse, New York, on view through Dec. 5; A Tender Excavation at Luckman Gallery, Cal State University, Los Angeles, on view through Feb. 21, 2026; and Confrontations: Pairings from the Collection at Museum Brandhorst in Munich, Germany, on view Sept. 27, 2026.
Victoria Marks, professor in the Department of World of Arts and Cultures/Dance, will debut a new dance work as part of Redrawing the Rancho, an interdisciplinary performance event activating the Rowland Mansion in La Puente, Calif. Alongside Nao Bustamante, Eva Aguila, Rosa Rodríguez-Frazier, and Marks will confront and reinterpret the narratives surrounding the Rowland Mansion—Southern California’s oldest surviving brick structure—and the intertwined histories of colonization, agriculture, and industrialization that shaped it.
Ajani Brannum in Will Rawls’ Unmade at the Hammer Museum at UCLA. (Sara M. Golonka)
Will Rawls, associate professor in the Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance, recently debuted his site specific performance work, Unmade, as part of the Hammer Museum’s Made in L.A. 2025. It traversed throughout the museum over the course of the afternoon and touched on themes of repurposing materials, collaboration, and building community. Unmade will be performed on select Saturdays for the duration of the exhibition.
Publications
The cover for Alex Ungprateeb Flynn's latest monograph, Pathways to Utopia. (Courtesy of Alex Ungprateeb Flynn)
Alex Ungprateeb Flynn, associate professor in the Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance, has published his second monograph, Pathways to Utopia: Time and Transformation in the Landless Workers Movement of Brazil, from Indiana University Press. Pathways to Utopia explores how Brazil's Landless Workers Movement, against all odds, has endured for forty years as one of the world's largest social movements—while transforming the way we understand the temporality of activism.
The cover of On NFTs. (Taschen)
Casey Reas, professor in the Department of Design Media Arts, is a writer and featured artist in the Taschen publication On NFTs, edited by Robert Alice. Encompassing the entire NFT ecosystem from algorithmic art to avatars and AI, this first major art historical survey of this field is now available. With 10 academic essays and 111 artists in total, the book offers an extensive insight into digital art on the blockchain today. Refik Anadol M.F.A. ‘14, lecturer in the Department of Design Media Arts, is also a featured artist in On NFTS.
Lora Cawelti, lecturer in the Visual and Performing Arts Education (VAPAE) Program, recently presented her research at the Connected Learning Summit. Her paper titled “‘We didn't want a nice space that was empty': Designing for Belonging in a Community Makerspace” reflects design based research conducted in collaboration with AIMS Center, a community makerspace in Fresno, Calif. This paper explores taking an arts-centered, culturally responsive approach to designing a community makerspace.
The cover of Siri Kaur's new book, Sistermoon. (Courtesy of Siri Kaur)
Siri Kaur, lecturer in the Department of Art, has a new book, Sistermoon. In Sistermoon, Kaur’s images collectively form a freewheeling narrative with recurring family characters growing and transforming as the pages turn. Kaur’s use of landscape and the close relationship of nature embed a sense of magical spirituality in the images. A recurring motif of water and a cast of talismanic creatures—a horse, rabbit, owl, tiny snails, a frog—punctuate the portraits, hinting at fairytale tropes and the uncanny.
Awards and Honors
Mohamed Sharif, associate adjunct professor in the Department of Architecture and Urban Design (AUD), and Todd Lynch, AUD lecturer, received an AIA-LA 2025 Design Award in the Resilient Design category for “Long House: a Fire Safe R-1 Prototype.” The annual AIA-LA Design Awards celebrate innovation, sustainability, and design excellence in built and unbuilt work in Los Angeles and beyond. This year’s program was themed “We Stand Together,” with a nod to projects responding to natural disasters and climate realities.
Peter Lunenfeld presented “Future Street: Los Angeles in the Era of Artificial Intelligence,” the 139th lecture in the distinguished UCLA series. (Courtesy of Peter Lunenfeld)
Peter Lunenfeld, professor in the Department of Design Media Arts, was named a UCLA Faculty Research Lecturer for the 2025–26 academic year. The annual Faculty Research Lectures recognize two Academic Senate members with exceptional records of research and creative achievement. Lunenfeld’s lecture, “Future Street: Los Angeles in the Era of Artificial Intelligence,” was held on Friday, Oct. 31.
Victoria Marks was appointed as the new Culver City Artist Laureate. She began her two-year term last spring. Marks creates movement-centered performances with and for groups of people, describing her work as a form of group portraiture. "I am deeply honored to be chosen as Culver City's Artist Laureate," said Marks. "My work is strongest when I am in community, and I believe that art uniquely connects us across diverse experiences and knits us together.”
Interviews
In the exhibit Ultraconcentrated by Casey Reas from 2013, two complementary channels of video scramble a 20-minute segment of television captured from a major U.S. network. (bitforms gallery)
Casey Reas was recently quoted in the New York Times article “Amid the A.I. Deluge, What Counts as Art? Ask the Curators.” Reas said, “I don’t really believe in the artist’s hand. I believe in the artist’s point of view.” The biggest question facing A.I. and art, according to Reas, is whether to integrate that work into existing canons or to break away and build new institutions around a new canon. “I personally believe both should be happening,” he said. He put that vision into practice with Feral File, an online platform dedicated to digital art.
Janet O’Shea, chair of and professor in the Department of the World Arts and Cultures/Dance, was a guest on the Fighting Matters podcast. In this episode, hosts Jeff Shaw and Mike Mahaffey, alongside O’Shea, tackle one of the deepest questions in combat sports: what separates fighting from violence? From the role of consent in Jiu-Jitsu and self-defense, to the rise of fascist fight clubs and the political stakes of play, this conversation explores how martial arts can shape culture far beyond the mat.
Special Projects
Dana Cuff, distinguished professor in the Department of Architecture and Urban Design, and her research center cityLAB are showcasing modular and prefab housing solutions in Altadena, Calif., as a faster, more affordable option for wildfire survivors. The showcase provides critical relief to survivors eager to get back onto their properties, nearly 10 months after the fires. This effort also helps identify scalable new housing models to tackle the region’s broader housing crisis.
Kutan Ayata, associate professor in the Department of Architecture and Urban Design, and his practice Young & Ayata were selected to redesign The Met'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.
FORMA's House on a Hill in New York. (Devon Banks / FORMA)
Miroslava Brooks and her practice FORMA recently completed a self-developed project House on a Hill in Hudson Valley, New York. An experiment in compact rural living, this home is a creative response to real-world constraints—a blend of idealism, pragmatism, and design ingenuity shaped by pandemic-era realities. It’s a story of first-time homebuilding that reflects broader shifts in how Americans are thinking about space, location, and lifestyle in a post-COVID world. The project was recently highlighted in Wallpaper, DOMUS, Dwell, and DesignBoom among others.
A first-look at the Infinity Room gallery from Refik Anadol’s new AI museum, opening this spring in the Grand L.A. (Dataland)
Refik Anadol M.F.A. ‘14 is poised to open Dataland, the world’s first museum of AI arts, inside the Frank Gehry-designed Grand L.A. complex in downtown Los Angeles next spring. Anadol also unveiled a sneak peak at the Infinity Room, one of the museum’s five discrete galleries. The immersive room features Anadol’s distinct swirling colors and images and will be infused with AI-generated scents, creating a multisensory experience powered by its very own AI model, called the Large Nature Model.
Header image: Will Rawls' Unmade will traverse the Hammer Museum for Made in L.A. 2025. (Sara M. Golonka)
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