UCLA Arts Newsletter
June 30, 2020
As our remarkable 2019-20 comes to a close, there is much to reflect on. It’s hard to sum up an academic year like the one we’ve just had. Given the current state of the world and how much our lives have shifted since March, my writing a traditional year-end summary is a challenge.
Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic and social unrest unlike anything we’ve experienced in generations, the first half of this academic year seems from another time.
On June 13, the School of the Arts and Architecture community celebrated the Class of 2020 in our first-ever virtual commencement. While we missed the joyous in-person festivities that usually accompany graduation under the late afternoon sun on Dickson Quad, it was moving to strangely feel even more closely connected in this physically distant virtual space sharing our frustration and our sorrow alongside our hopes, dreams, ambitions, and collective resolve for a better future. We honored the hard work of our graduating students, all of whom demonstrated extraordinary determination these past many months while completing their coursework and mounting their senior shows amidst a global pandemic.
Final Shows 
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| Department of Architecture and Urban Design: RUMBLE | Department of Art: Unfrayed | |
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| Department of Design Media Arts: NEARREST NEIGHBOR | Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance: WAC Senior Projects |
Works in Progress
In March, the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture launched a podcast, Works In Progress. We started our first season with a question that was appropriate to our current moment: When times are challenging, how can the arts help us find our way forward? We spoke with UCLA faculty, staff, and students about how they are teaching and learning remotely, and how their ideas and practices can help us better understand what we're going through.
On a typical day, the work of our faculty enlivens museums, galleries, performance venues, lecture halls, public spaces across the globe. While many of those venues and institutions have temporarily shut their doors, the creative and scholarly contributions of the UCLA Arts community continue to mine the complexities of the human condition, ask essential questions of our time, and expand the potential of creativity—now in new modalities, accessible from home. Read more for a list of recent accolades and current and upcoming virtual exhibitions, performances, and lectures.
In the News
Announcements
The UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture wants to hear from you:
How are you adapting during this extraordinary period of safe distancing? Let us know how you’re doing, what you’re reading, listening to, watching, cooking, or making to help you weather the novel coronavirus pandemic. Reply to this newsletter, email us at communications@arts.ucla.edu, send us your selfies or a voice memo with your thoughts. Stay well and we look forward to hearing from you.
Register for 10 Questions:
In Fall 2020, the School of the Arts and Architecture will offer Arts&Arc100: 10 Questions. This third edition of the hybrid course and public program will continue to explore essential questions, such as: What is Justice? What is Power? What is Loss? What is Love? What is Hope? and What is Resilience?; bringing together leading faculty and distinguished alumni voices from across the university. Transcending traditional disciplinary boundaries, these arts-initiated conversations will create vibrant forums that engage multiple viewpoints. It is this work, of seeing differently, together, that will prepare us to tackle the essential foundational questions of our time. Students register here. Members of the public who wish to attend, additional details will be released later this summer.
Read the latest stories about UCLA Arts students, faculty, and alumni:
From campus news to faculty and alumni activities around the globe the UCLA Arts website is updated daily to aggregate the best news and stories about and written by the School of the Arts and Architecture community. Arts and Architecture community.
Read past editions of the UCLA Arts Newsletter
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