Contents:

Get Out the Vote!

• 📸 Fans of Democracy | Organized by CCA Exhibitions
• 📸 Just Crushing: Election Night | Organized by CCA Exhibitions
• 📸 National Voter Registration Day | Organized by Michael Wertz and Jaime Austin
• 📸 Drag and Democracy | Organized by the Voting Coalition
• 📸 Get out the Vote! Poster Exhibition | Organized by Owen Smith
• 🎥 THEORY / POLITICS / CCA | Organized by James Graham & Ecem Saricayir
• 📸 The Last Souper | Organized by Susanne Cockrell

Organized by Jaime Austin, Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs

Inspired by the Americana of Midwestern county fairs, artists Allison Rowe and Nancy Nowacek (both MFA Social Practice 2011) remix social rituals and cultural symbols. Their collaborative exhibition, Fans of Democracy, captures the emotional undercurrent of American politics—intense passion and constant collision.

Visitors are greeted by Just Crushing: Made in America, a parade of psychedelic festival flags dressed in swirling mixes of red and blue. The show's title piece—paper fans representing a spectrum of voting issues—was inspired by intense summer heat fueled by corn sweat. Just Crushing: Voter Perspectives, a video installation, collapses the drama of demolition derby, comfort of midway snacks, and Reddit forums to reflect the transformation of information and ideas into political opinion. And Concession Stand offers the opportunity to play politician, sacrificing personal desire for the promise of a larger social good.

View installation images of Fans of Democracy →

Organized by Jaime Austin, Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs

Coming soon!

Organized by Michael Wertz, Chair, Illustration and Jaime Austin, Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs

On September 15, 2026, the CCA Community celebrated National Voter Registration Day with an afternoon of screenprinting, creative expression, and civic engagement.

Students joined Professor Michael Wertz, the Oakland Lowdown, and members of the CCA Voting Coalition in the Nave to create their own VOTE posters and T-shirts.

View images of National Voter Registration Day →

Coming soon!

Organized by Owen Smith, Associate Professor, Illustration Program

With funding from a CCA@CCA Faculty Grant, students in Owen Smith's ILLUS-3040-2: Studio 2: Concept course designed and printed a vibrant, diverse collection of posters designed to speak directly to the CCA Community. The collection was on view in the CCA PLAySPACE Gallery in the lead-up to the Midterm Elections, from October 30 through November 4, 2026.

Each poster captures a different facet of why voting matters, offers a unique invitation to civic participation, or honors the history of voting rights. The collection seeks to communicate the importance of participating in elections and the vital role that each of us can play in shaping our collective future.

View the complete poster collection →

Organized by James Graham, Assistant Professor, Architecture Program, and Ecem Saricayir, Visiting Faculty, Graduate Architecture Program

Hosted by History Theory Experiments (HTX) on Election Day 2026, this symposium interrogated the relationship between architectural theory and politics by revisiting several decades of architectural theory at California College of the Arts (CCA).

The emergence of CCA’s professional architecture programs (circa 1990) coincided with a crest in what has often been termed architecture’s “theoretical turn.” Likewise, the establishment of History Theory Experiments (HTX) at CCA (circa 2013) marked a moment of growing interest in architecture’s diverse media and modes of practice, from spatial activism to exhibitions and discursive production that extended beyond the boundaries of the architectural discipline. Situated at the intersection of an experimental arts college’s socially engaged creative practices and the rigor of an accredited professional degree, CCA’s distinctive approach to architectural education also shaped a particular relationship between theory, politics, and the built environment. With CCA set to close at the end of spring 2027, at a moment when the politics of architecture and theory alike are increasingly contested, this history offers new openings for the field’s present and future.

Five invited speakers who have taught at CCA over the past several decades reflected on the college’s history of architectural history and theory. The third and final installment in a series of architectural theory symposia organized by HTX (Materialities of Architectural Discourse, 2021; Theory Acts, 2024), this gathering celebrated the remarkable lineage of historians and theorists who have shaped CCA’s community while looking unflinchingly at theory’s relationship to the profession today.

Jasmine Benyamin is an Adjunct Associate Professor at the USC School of Architecture whose interdisciplinary scholarship addresses architectural manifestations in art practice and popular culture, with a particular focus on film and photography.

Irene Cheng is an Associate Professor in Architecture at the Cooper Union, an architectural historian and critic, and the author of The Shape of Utopia: The Architecture of Radical Reform in Nineteenth-Century America.

David Gissen is Professor of Architecture at Yale University, director of the PhD program at the School of Architecture, and the author of The Architecture of Disability.

Jia Yi Gu is Assistant Professor of Architecture at Harvey Mudd College, an architectural historian and curator, and one-half of the architecture and research studio Spinagu.

Mabel O. Wilson is Professor of Architecture at Columbia University and Chair of African American and African Diasporic Studies, and author of the forthcoming Building Race and Nation: Slavery and Dispossession’s Influence on American Civic Architecture.

Organized by Susanne Cockrell, Professor, Graduate Fine Arts Program

Coming soon!