Faculty Spotlight: Spring 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, Public Talks, and More
Current student Roxanne Harris interacts with Steve Anderson's Machine Visions: Mojave at Flux.
Steve Anderson, Lauren Lee McCarthy, and Casey Reas, all faculty members in the department of design media arts, were featured in the most recent Flux at BLUM Gallery in Los Angeles. Flux is a festival of creativity showcasing bold innovations in moving image and sound as artists experiment with emerging tools and technologies. The festival presents screenings, talks, sensory exhibits, hands-on workshops, and performances. They were featured alongside alumni and current students such as Roxanne Harris, Eli Joteva, Will Wharton, and Spectra Studio collective members Carrie Chen, Don Edler, and Harvey Moon.
Thai artist Nakrob Moonmanas, whose work is featured here, is the subject of a solo exhibition curated by Alex Ungprateeb Flynn. (Courtesy of the artist)
Alex Ungprateeb Flynn, associate professor in the department of world arts and cultures/dance, curated รูปทอง: Metamorphosis in Gold, a new solo exhibition by artist Nakrob Moonmanas, on view at Warin Lab Contemporary, Bangkok, from May 23 through June 10, 2026. Working across collage, sculpture, installation, and moving image, Moonmanas has emerged as a significant voice in contemporary Thai art. The exhibition is a collaboration between the artist and Flynn that explores the tensions between tradition and modernity through the lens of a speculative archive.
Julia Koerner, associate adjunct professor in the department of architecture and urban design, is featured in the exhibition Fashioning Power, Fashioning Peace at the Woodrow Wilson House in Washington, D.C, on view through Saturday, May 9, 2026. The exhibition showcases authentic clothing from 59 different countries and territories, each symbolizing power, diplomacy, and tangible cultural heritage. Koerner will also deliver the keynote address at FTI: Forward at SCI-Arc on Tuesday, May 19, 2026. FTI Forward is a platform where students and emerging professionals shake up the status quo on facades and all things carbon.
Installation view of Lauren Lee McCarthy and Kyle McDonald's Voice In My Head, which is included in the exhibition Disruptive Cultures. (Courtesy of the artists)
Lauren Lee McCarthy M.F.A. '11, professor in the department of design media arts and co-director of UCLA Social Software, and Romi Morrison, assistant professor in the department of design media arts, spoke at New York City’s New Museum on Thursday, April 16, 2026. The forum, "From Studio to Study: Artistic Research on AI and Society," explored art, inquiry, and artificial intelligence. McCarthy is also included in the exhibition Disruptive Cultures: Affect and Effects of Social Media at the Beall Center for Art + Technology at UC Irvine. On view through Saturday, June 27, 2026, the exhibition explores how social media can provoke strong emotional reactions in users and has significant cultural and social implications.
Rebeca Méndez's video installation The Sea Around Us was inspired by Rachel Carson’s 1951 book of the same name. (Courtesy of the artist)
Rebeca Méndez, professor in the department of design media arts, will participate in a 75th anniversary celebration of Rachel Carson’s seminal book, The Sea Around Us, on Thursday, May 21, 2026, at the Hammer Museum. An interdisciplinary group of Indigenous culture bearers, scientists, artists, and ocean storytellers—including Méndez—will address the legacy of DDT+, industrial, and radioactive waste dumping off the southern California coast. Méndez will also screen her large-scale video installation The Sea Around Us at the Hammer on Wednesday, June 3, 2026.
Daid Roy, lecturer in the department of art, is included in the 59th Carnegie International, titled If the world we. Organized every four years by the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Carnegie International is the longest-running exhibition of international art in North America. The 59th edition is the most collaborative and far-reaching to date. If the world we is on view through Sunday, Jan. 3, 2027.
Anna Sew Hoy and Cauleen Smith, both faculty members in the department of art, are included in this year’s Venice Biennale International Art Exhibition. On view from Saturday, May 9, through Sunday, Nov. 22, 2026, the 61st International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale is a major international cultural exhibition held every two years in Venice, Italy. Sew Hoy is participating as part of the artist collective FAC XTRA RETREAT (FXR), which will directly engage Ei Arakawa-Nash’s installation Grass Babies, Moon Babies at Venice’s Japan Pavilion on May 8 and 10.
Featured in the RAI Film Festival at UCLA, God is a Woman, directed by Andrés Peyrot, follows Panama’s Indigenous Kuna community as they recover a long-lost film made about them in the 1970s and try to reclaim their image. (Courtesy of Aparna Sharma)
Aparna Sharma, professor in the department of world arts and cultures/dance, co-organized the RAI FILM Festival at UCLA alongside professor Robert Lemelson. The festival comes to the UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance (WACD) on Thursday, May 7, and Friday, May 8, 2026. WACD will host screenings of both short and feature films in the Glorya Kaufman Dance Theater. All screenings are free and available on a first-come, first-served basis. The UCLA edition of the RAI FILM Festival is a traveling version of the biennale event that takes place in the United Kingdom.
Anuradha Vikram, continuing lecturer in the department of art, participated in a panel conversation at the 4th Annual CA Arts & Culture Summit on Monday, April 20, 2026, in Sacramento, Calif. The session, “Moving From Reacting to Reimagining: A Replicable Model for Building Power,” shared actionable tools from the LA LGBTQ+ Arts & Culture Coalition, a new cross-sector network of 30+ organizations and 70+ individual artists formed in 2025 to defend creative freedom and LGBTQ+ visibility.
Research and Publications
Anurima Banerji, associate professor in the department of world arts and cultures/dance, contributed the essay “The Laws of Movement: The Natyashastra, Caste, and the Archives of Indian Classical Dance" to Archival Entanglements from Ohio University Press. Archival Entanglements brings together a range of approaches, from traditional essays to artistic engagements, and positions the archive as both a generative site of knowledge production and a constricted force of consolidation around dominant narratives―essentially, as a complex web of theories and practices with which the arts and humanities are fundamentally entangled.
Salmaan Craig (second from the right) at the ribbon cutting for a project that proved bio-based materials can perform the same thermodynamic work as concrete thermal mass for passive cooling. (Courtesy of Salmaan Craig)
Salmaan Craig, associate professor in the department of architecture and urban design, contributed to new research published in Energy and Buildings. In collaboration with Rural Studio, an off-campus design-build program at the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture of Auburn University, the study demonstrates that bio-based materials can perform the exact same thermodynamic work as concrete thermal mass for passive cooling. In under-resourced regions, the energy burden of air conditioning is economically punishing. The test buildings provide a tangible reference for how much free cooling an optimized thermal mass can deliver.
From GOST Books, Ayda Gragossian documented the spaces, objects, and textures that are often overlooked for the photo book North North South. (Courtesy of the artist)
Ayda Gragossian, lecturer for the Visual and Performing Arts Education (VAPAE) program, published the photo book North North South. Gragossian amassed a collection of images of store windows, parking lots, and suburban houses over four years. Her black and white photographs are devoid of people, an aesthetic choice that emphasizes the city’s contradictory characteristics. The visual narrative in North North South departs from that of the glamorous Los Angeles popularized by the entertainment industry. Instead, Gragossian’s photographs capture a deeply personal view of a working-class city where different realities coexist in close proximity.
Julia Koerner, associate adjunct professor in the department of architecture and urban design, contributed a chapter to Plastic Futures in Architecture: From Recycled Synthetics to Bio-Based Polymers, a new publication from Routledge scheduled for release in June 2026. It details the recent efforts of developing sustainable approaches to reclaim synthetic polymers and explore natural polymers in design production. Not long ago, plastic was envisioned as a miraculous material. Now plastic pollution has become an inseparable part of the environment. How can the built environment make use of this prolific and “miraculous” material in an environmentally responsible way?
Wilna Julmiste Taylor's comic, Valentine Toya LeGrand, is part of a larger film project. (Courtesy of the artist)
Wilna Julmiste Taylor, lecturer and associate director of the UCLA Art & Global Health Center, will publish a short comic, Valentine Toya LeGrand, in the forthcoming Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies from UCLA’s James S. Coleman African Studies Center. Since its establishment in 1970, Ufahamu continues to challenge and correct misconceptions about Africa and the African diaspora. Taylor also delivered a keynote address at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn., for National Black HIV AIDS Awareness Day.
Interviews
Andrea Fraser (left) and Carmen de Monteflores, daughter and mother, are featured in the 2026 Whitney Biennial. (Tom Scanlon / Cultured)
Andrea Fraser, professor in the department of art, and her mother, Carmen de Monteflores, were the subject of a New York Times' story. After giving birth to her youngest daughter, de Monteflores stopped painting. Years later, that daughter, Fraser, saw a piece her mother had created just after she was born. It was a photograph of a crying baby pasted behind chicken wire. Fraser arrived at her own interpretation. “The chicken wire is a self-portrait,” she said, glancing at de Monteflores, who was listening as intently as possible to her daughter. “So that represents her feelings about motherhood in my infancy.” Both artists are featured in this year's 2026 Whitney Biennial.
A still from Art21's "Realms of the Real" featuring Candice Lin. (Courtesy of Art 21)
Candice Lin, associate professor in the department of art, is featured in the Art21 documentary “Realms of the Real.” The documentary follows the artist down the myriad rabbit holes of her practice, revealing how she incorporates materials with deep historical resonances to complicate official narratives. “What are the things that can’t be verified, but probably happened, and are important stories to tell?” asks Lin. “I use the speculative aspect of my work to allow those things to come to the surface.”
Special Projects
Refik Anadol recently announced the opening date for Dataland, the world's first museum of AI arts. (Courtesy of Refik Anadol Studio)
Refik Anadol M.F.A. ‘14, lecturer in the department of design media arts and this year's UCLA Arts commencement keynote speaker, will open Dataland on Saturday, June 20, 2026. Inside the Frank Gehry-designed Grand L.A. complex in downtown Los Angeles, Dataland is the world’s first museum of AI arts. Its first exhibition, Machine Dreams: Rainforest, created by Refik Anadol Studio, was inspired by a trip to the Amazon and uses vast data sets to immerse visitors in a machine-generated sensory experience of the natural world.
Dana Cuff and cityLAB-UCLA have identified potential privately owned small lots across Los Angeles. (Courtesy of cityLAB-UCLA)
Dana Cuff, distinguished professor in the department of architecture and urban design and founding director of cityLAB-UCLA, recently launched a program to catalyze development on privately owned small lots across Los Angeles. As part of the ongoing “Small Lots, Big Impacts” initiative to turn vacant small lots into new starter homes, cityLAB-UCLA and Genesis LA have expanded the program to include small parcels of privately owned land. By advancing development on both public and private lots, cityLAB-UCLA aims to create affordable starter homes and expand pathways to homeownership for first-time buyers priced out of Los Angeles’ housing market.
Installation view of UCLA Arts alum Karl Haendel's Hands and Things at the Wilshire/Fairfax Station. LA Metro's public art initiatives are led by alum and lecturer Zipporah Lax Yamamoto. (Courtesy of Metro Art / Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority)
Zipporah Lax Yamamoto Ph.D. ‘11, lecturer for the Visual and Performing Arts Education (VAPAE) program, is deputy executive officer with the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LA Metro), where she directs the agency’s public art and exhibition programs. On Friday, May 8, 2026, the Metro D Line extension will open with large-scale immersive public art installations by nine renowned artists including UCLA Arts alumni Eamon Ore-Giron, Karl Haendel, and Susan Silton. The new stations connect Mid-Wilshire, Museum Row, and Beverly Hills with Koreatown, Downtown Los Angeles, and beyond. This is the first section to open of the three section subway extension. When all three sections are fully completed, the D Line will serve the UCLA campus and include new, architecturally integrated public artworks by 27 artists.
Header image: Rebeca Méndez's The Sea Around Us installation shows a video of a woman covering her face with an abalone shell. The installation, which is divided across six channels, depicts the consequences of poisonous waste dumping off the Southern California coast. (Courtesy of the artist)
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