Zakk Marquez
Day in the Life
“This program has been the most transformative, awesome, crazy experience I've ever had in my life.” - Zakk Marquez '15, B.A., World Arts and Cultures
Zakk Marquez arrived at UCLA questioning his identity and his future. By the end of his sophomore year, he had found a community in the Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance (WACD), grown secure in his queer identity, and begun what would turn into a career in HIV/AIDS activism.
While working towards a degree in physics, Zakk found himself in a WACD introductory course. “I was in a small department at UCLA where the class sizes were 10-30 people – compared to my 200 person calculus class,” he says. When class began with a dialogue rather than a lecture, he thought "Wow. I feel like a human being in this class and not like a number."
Before joining this department, Zakk had never considered himself an artist. WACD transformed Zakk’s perception of what art is and the power it has. “We're all creators,” he says, “and we all have that ability and potential as human beings to create change, sustain change, and really touch people through empathy.”
Through the department, Zakk became involved in the UCLA Art and Global Health Center’s Sex Squad, an arts-based peer-intervention HIV/STI prevention program for high school youth. Weaving together raw personal narratives, storytelling, performance, and participatory art-making, the Sex Squad brings an honest, fun, engaging, and effective sexual health education program to thousands of high school students in Los Angeles and beyond.
The faculty and staff leaders in WACD and the Art and Global Health Center inspired Zakk to pursue work related to the arts, activism, community engagement, and public health after graduation. He is now a program coordinator at The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation working as part of a team that supports HIV prevention education and advocacy programs throughout the world.
Where will Zakk go next? “To infinity and beyond,” he jokes. But armed with his UCLA WACD education, relationships, and experiences, the sky's the limit for Zakk.
Please consider supporting students like Zakk with a gift to the department or to the Dean’s Fund for Excellence, which supports students across the entire School of the Arts and Architecture. Your generosity will count towards UCLA’s ambitious Centennial Campaign to support the next 100 years of excellence.