Meet the 2020-21 Dean's Student Council: Leslie Foster
This series of web posts profiles the 2020-2021 UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture’s Dean’s Student Council.
Leslie Foster is a first-year graduate student in Design Media Arts. His practice, which combines object-making, experimental film, and installations, focuses on exploring Black and queer futurity and expanding the Black imaginary through the lens of dream logic.
Leslie Foster creates because he can’t imagine not doing so. His work shifts and evolves between the lucid and the dream-state, pocket universes and reality. “When I discovered the specific dialect of visual language I use,” he says, “I was finally able to express and embody ideas and feelings, which had been trying to claw their way out of me for my entire life.”
“I honestly don't know what I would do if I didn't have access to that vocabulary— the act of creating.”
Leslie Foster
Like reality, Foster’s practice is always shifting and evolving. “Right now,” he elaborates, “I'm particularly interested in investigating how object-making intersects with video art and installation space to create pocket universes that operate as waking dreams.”
“Heavenly Brown Body,” Foster’s recent experimental film installation, is currently on view as part of the Made in California exhibition at Brea Gallery in Orange County. “Heavenly Brown Body” uses the poem “Litanies to my Heavenly Brown Body” by poet Mark Aguhar (she/her) as the text for a queer liturgy. The work rests in the tension between the need of oppressed peoples to name their pain and their incredible ability to celebrate their existence and dream of far better futures.
Foster has also been working on a series of Instagram posts over the last three years. The posts are tagged #ArtistFail and feature his rejection letters from a variety of institutions. “I've loved the conversations that have been sparked,” he says. “It's been exciting to see other folks start sharing their own rejection letters and discussing something that is a big part of art life but often gets glossed over on social media.”
“I've been pretty gentle with the pace of my creativity. I've just allowed that to happen and it's felt pretty healthy.”
Leslie Foster
Over the span of the pandemic, Foster has seen the pace of his work ebb and flow. “I've been pretty gentle with the pace of my creativity,” he says. “I've just allowed that to happen and it's felt pretty healthy.”
When not producing academic or artistic work, Foster is baking. Aside from spending months perfecting his recipe for Japanese milk buns, he also rediscovered his love of American biscuits as well as a newfound interest in British biscuits. (Specifically, he says, the version featured in the TV comedy series Ted Lasso. “If you know, you know.”)
Despite the challenges of online instruction, Foster has built a strong community in his cohort and department. He looks forward to returning to campus to deepen the relationships he started remotely. “It's going to be good to get into the studio and be able to communicate and collaborate with my cohort without having to schedule a Zoom call,” he says. He also looks forward to exploring the Broad Art Center, which he visited before joining the program and is excited to experience for the first time as a student.
Foster has found that his role on the Dean’s Student Council provides him with an opportunity to speak his mind about issues that are important to himself and his fellow students. When he returns to the Council in his second year, he wishes to continue keeping his department and the School accountable to the student body.
“[Serving on the Council] provides me with an opportunity to speak about issues I think are important, that my fellow students think are important, and make sure our voices are heard by the people responsible for solving those issues.”
Leslie Foster
Foster hopes that the Council continues to create more equity at the school and reimagine community safety. “I hope we can provide a wide range of students a platform to share their experiences and work and maintain a continuity of student leadership ready to thoughtfully address issues that continue to arise,” he says.
To students considering serving on the Dean’s Student Council next year, Foster says: do it.
“Serving on the Council is an incredible way to be part of the conversation with our administration about the choices and decisions that affect those of us in the student body. We need your perspectives and wisdom,” he says.
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