Winter 2025 Message from Interim Dean Lionel Popkin
As we step into the new year, I find myself reflecting on the vital role artists play in preparing us for the unknown. While the unknown can often feel daunting, even overwhelming, it also invites us to imagine unrealized possibilities and propels us toward discovery.
Artists and creative thinkers have always illuminated pathways forward—giving voice to our anxieties and aspirations, challenging conventions, provoking dialogue, and inspiring action. In doing so, they transform uncertainty into resilience and hope.
This ethos is at the heart of UCLA Arts. Our students, faculty, and alumni are not just creators; they’re innovators, activists, and visionaries who confront the unknown head-on. They grapple with questions that don’t have easy answers. Whether tackling the complexities of climate change, advancing social justice, or exploring the intersections of art and emerging technologies, their work not only reflects the present but envisions possible futures.
I am continually energized by the work of our community and have no doubt this winter quarter will be any different. Amidst uncertainty, there is much to be energized by and even more to look forward to.
This Saturday, Jan. 11, Fire Kinship: Southern California Native Ecology and Art opens at the Fowler. The museum’s second PST ART exhibition centers Indigenous knowledge and reintroduces fire as a generative force that offers a path toward a sustainable future.
On Saturday, Feb. 1, internationally acclaimed South African artist William Kentridge will deliver a performance-based lecture at CAP UCLA’s newest venue, The Nimoy. Kentridge and his Centre for the Less Good Idea, known for creating works of art that are grounded in politics, science, literature, and history that maintain space for contradiction and uncertainty, will present a series of short form works exploring the theatrical epic.
Later in February, the Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance and the Disability Studies Inclusions Labs will host choreographer, dancer, and Regents’ Lecturer Alice Sheppard. Professor Victoria Marks and Sheppard will teach a course centered on disability artistry, performance, and the political movements of ideas.
This quarter also includes the opening of the Hammer Museum’s highly anticipated exhibition Alice Coltrane, Monument Eternal, our Departments of Art and Design Media Arts’s student exhibitions, and lectures from the Department of Architecture and Urban Design that feature esteemed alumni such as Todd Gannon Ph.D. ‘11, Mora Nabi M.Arch. ‘12, Sean Boyd M.Arch. ‘12, and Kevin Sherrod M.Arch. II ‘17.
This is only a small selection of what our school has to offer this quarter. Visit GO ARTS UCLA for more.
Finally, I’d like to extend a warm welcome to Zoë Ryan as she begins her tenure as Director of the Hammer this quarter. Her leadership promises to open new horizons for UCLA Arts, and I look forward to the many ways she will help shape our future.
Wishing you all a productive winter quarter as we individually and collectively continue to embrace the unknown—and all the promise it holds.
Lionel Popkin
Interim Dean, UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture
Stay engaged. Use #UCLAarts to stay connected.
