CCA@CCA Archive | Fall 2020
Contents:
CCA@CCA Virtual Brunch Series | Presented by the CCA Exhibitions Department
- 🎥 📖 | A Conversation on Art in Times of Social Distance | Organized by Sam Vernon
- 🎥 📖 | A Conversation on Performance Art in Times of Social Distance | Organized by Sam Vernon and Menaja Ganesh
- 🎥 📖 | Second Helping: CCA@CCA Post-Election Town Hall | Organized by Sam Vernon and Menaja Ganesh
- 🎥 📖 | A Conversation on Online Learning Through Activism | Organized by Jaime Austin
CCA@CCA Faculty Micro Grants Program | CCA@CCA Faculty Micro Grants are designed to support the implementation of small-scale, immediate public-facing events, projects, or activations that aim to improve the learning experience of students and offer critical resources for civic involvement. These grants are administered by the CCA Exhibitions Department.
- 📖 | Getting Out the Vote: The 2020 US Presidential Election Awareness Project | Organized by Steve Jones and Kim Anno
- 📖 | The Circle: Autonomy Beyond the Nation State | Organized by Vreni Michelini-Castillo
- 🎥 📖 | Graphic Design and Social Justice Activism | Organized by Steve Jones
- 🎥 💻 📖 | Voting Story | Organized by Aspen Mays
- 🎥 💻 📖 | Make. Act. Resist: A Teach-In on Borders and Migration | Organized by Kim Anno, Jose Brunner, and Irene Cheng
- 🎥 | Joshua Myers: The Black Radical Tradition; or a Poetics of a Liberation | Organized by Jacqueline Francis with Diego Villalobos and Kim Nguyen
- 🎥 📖 | BIPOC Virtual Open Print Studio Artists' Talks | Organized by Jaime Knight
- 💻 📖 | Believe in Truth | Organized by Linda Geary
- 💻 📖 | WE'ave THE PEOPLE | Organized by Susanne Cockrell
- 🎥 💻 📖 | Alt Knowledges Exhibition Series | Organized by christopher hamamoto
Messages to Our Community | Presented by the CCA Exhibitions Department
- 🎥 | What does it mean to be in community now? | Organized by Menaja Ganesh and Troy Taylor
- 💻 | CCA@CCA Artwork Campaign | Organized by Jaime Austin and Bryndis Hafthorsdottir, website design by Troy Taylor
- 📖 | Leading Change | Organized by Sam Vernon
CCA@CCA Hosts Virtual Brunch: A Conversation on Art in Times of Social Distance
Organized by Sam Vernon, CCA@CCA Faculty Coordinator
This live Zoom event took place on Wednesday, September 23, 2020 and featured Bay Area-based artists, arts administrators, and activists who have had significant success in transitioning their programs for social distancing. Participants included Ashara Ekundayo, Astria Suparak, PJ Gubatina Policarpio, and Martin Strickland. Moderated by Sam Vernon (Assistant Professor, Printmedia Program).
🎥 Watch a recording of this event below and on YouTube ➞
📖 Read a summary of this event by Katherine Hamilton on the Rewind Review Respond website ➞
CCA@CCA Hosts Virtual Brunch: A Conversation on Performance Art in Times of Social Distance
Organized by Sam Vernon, CCA@CCA Faculty Coordinator, and Menaja Ganesh, CCA@CCA Student Fellow
For performance art in the age of social distancing, the show must go online. This live Zoom event took place on Wednesday, October 21, 2020 and featured randy reyes and CCA alum Maria Clara Merçon, two performance artists who continue to engage with their interactive projects by making videos, sharing work virtually, and collaborating with others. Co-moderated by Sam Vernon (Assistant Professor, Printmedia Program) and Menaja Ganesh (student outreach fellow for Creative Citizens in Action).
🎥 Watch a recording of this event below and on YouTube ➞
📖 Read a review of this event by Isha Tripathi on the Rewind Review Respond website ➞
Second Helping: CCA@CCA Post-Election Town Hall
Organized by Sam Vernon, CCA@CCA Faculty Coordinator, and Menaja Ganesh, CCA@CCA Student Fellow
During the protests of summer 2020, the amount of direct-action work, community-centered work, and mutual aid skyrocketed as a direct response to create lasting change in our society. The negative impacts of capitalism, western imperialism and borderlines that divide people are arbitrary, xenophobic, and racist; this town hall, which took place on Monday, November 16, 2020, attempted to uplift community work in the aftermath of the election and celebrate people regardless of their background or status. Featuring Jocelyn Jackson, People’s Kitchen Collective; Conrad Guevara, artist representing Real Time & Space and Town Fridge; Larissa Gilbert, artist representing The Oxbow School in collaboration with 2727 California; and Lexa Walsh, artist representing Oakland Stock.
🎥 Watch a recording of this town hall below and on YouTube ➞
📖 Read the Zoom Chat Transcript ➞
📖 Read a response to this event by Katherine Hamilton on the Rewind Review Respond website ➞
CCA@CCA Hosts Virtual Brunch: A Conversation on Online Learning Through Activism
Organized by Jaime Austin, Director, Exhibitions and Public Programming
This live Zoom event took place on Thursday, December 10, 2020 and featured CCA faculty who have had significant success integrating activism into their fall 2020 courses through collaborative projects, public programs, and online exhibitions that were featured in CCA’s Creative Citizens Series. These efforts were seeded through CCA@CCA Faculty Micro Grant Awards, which were designed to support course efforts tied to democratic engagement and enable implementation of immediate public-facing projects or activations to improve the learning experience of students and offer critical resources for civic involvement.
This event was moderated by Sam Vernon (Assistant Professor, Printmedia Program) & Jaime Austin (Director of Exhibitions & Public Programming). Participants included: chris hamamoto, Assistant Professor, Graphic Design Program; Linda Geary, Professor, Painting and Drawing Program; Steve Jones, Adjunct Professor, First Year Core Studio Program; Susanne Cockrell, Associate Professor, Community Arts Program; and Vreni Michelini-Castillo, Adjunct Professor, Critical Ethnic Studies Program.
🎥 Watch a recording of this event below and on YouTube ➞
📖 Find links to all the projects mentioned during this event in the Zoom Chat Transcript ➞
Getting Out the Vote: The 2020 US Presidential Election Awareness Project
Organized by Steve Jones, Adjunct Professor, First Year Core Studio Program and Kim Anno, Professor, Painting and Drawing Program.
With the November election less than two months away, surveys showed that more than four in ten (46%) Americans said they were not too confident, or not at all confident that the general election would be conducted fairly and accurately. Voting rights activists also worried about in-person voting in November, after the primary season saw long lines, issues with voting machines and limited polling locations open.
Students in Steve Jones' course, Agitprop: Issues and Causes, teamed up with students in Kim Anno's course, Citizen Artists/Designers/Journalists, to respond to the prompt: "What are the issues that will drive you to the polls in 2020?" Their designs were then disseminated on social media and in print to help get out the vote.
The Circle: Autonomy Beyond the Nation State
Organized by Vreni Michelini-Castillo, Adjunct Professor, Critical Ethnic Studies Program
The Circle: Autonomy Beyond the Nation-State was a series of conversations about how five creatives are reimagining and building autonomy through tender, ground breaking interdisciplinary art, traditional medicine, ecological knowledge, poetry and music. The series included four artists' talks:
- Monday, October 5, 2020: Mohawk water protector, land defender and rapper Dioganhdih.
- Thursday, October 8, 2020: Queer doula, herbalist, educator, activist La Loba Loca
- Tuesday, October 13, 2020: Guerrerense/San Jose undocuqueer writer and activist Yosimar Reyes.
- Tuesday, October 20, 2020: AfroBorikén community organizers, activists, and performance duo Las Nietas de Nonó.
📖 Read a summary of Dioganhdih's artist talk by Menaja Ganesh on the Rewind Review Respond website ➞
Graphic Design and Social Justice Activism
Organized by Steve Jones, Adjunct Professor, First Year Core Studio Program
The lecture Graphic Design and Social Justice Activism was presented on Tuesday, October 13, 2020 by Sabiha Basrai and Joy Liu-Trujillo of Design Action Collective. Design Action Collective is a worker-owned and managed cooperative that provides graphic design and visual communications for progressive, non-profit, and social change organizations. Its members aim to help build and strengthen progressive movements fighting for economic and social justice.
🎥 Watch a recording of this event below and on YouTube ➞
📖 Read a summary of this event by Gordon Fung on the Rewind Review Respond website ➞
Voting Story
Organized by Aspen Mays, Associate Professor, Photography Program
Voting Story is a digital exhibition of photographs by students at CCA and Georgia State University in Atlanta. Photography majors in the courses Investigations 3 (CCA) and Portfolio One (GSU) were prompted to produce work that describes their personal voting stories. The result is a fascinating set of images that reveal the personal, political, and geographical factors that determine what voting means to each photographer.
On Tuesday, October 15, 2020, SF Camerawork live-streamed a series of conversations between CCA and GSU students about the exhibition Voting Story. Moderated by CCA alumni Chanell Stone.
🎥 View a recording of this event on the SF Camerawork website ➞
💻 View the Voting Story exhibition on the CCA Libraries website ➞
📖 Read a review of Voting Story by Gordon Fung on the Rewind Review Respond website ➞
Make. Act. Resist: A Teach-In on Borders and Migration
Organized by Kim Anno, Professor, Painting and Drawing Program; Jose Brunner, Adjunct II Professor, Critical Ethnic Studies Program; and Irene Cheng, Associate Professor, Architecture Program
Over the last four years, artists and designers have deployed their skills to oppose Trump’s anti-immigrant and nationalist rhetoric through critical artistic projects that build cross-border alliances and give voice to migrant experiences. This virtual teach-in focused on art and design practices that address the politics of borders and migration. The aim of the "teach-in" was to simultaneously mobilize the CCA community while making scholarship and art public and outward facing. The teach-in included a website highlighting projects by CCA faculty, students, alumni and collaborators who have been at the forefront of borders and migration issues for many years. It also featured three live events:
- Monday, October 12, 2020: Film Screening + Discussion of "The Infiltrators:" a film by Alex Rivera and Cristina Ibarra.
- Monday, October 19, 2020: Keynote lecture by Sarah Lopez. Sarah Lopez is a built environment historian, as well as a migration scholar. Lopez' research focuses on the impact of migrant remittances—dollars earned in the U.S. and sent to families and communities in Mexico—on the architecture and landscape of rural Mexico and urban USA.
- Monday, October 26, 2020: Keynote lecture by Ron Rael. Ron Rael is a design activist, author, and thought leader within the topics of additive manufacturing, borderwall studies, and earthen architecture. His research interests connect indigenous and traditional material practices to contemporary technologies and issues.
Make. Act. Resist was made possible by generous support from Creative Citizens in Action, the Architecture Division, the President’s Diversity Steering Group, the Film Program, and the CCA Libraries.
💻 Browse makeactresist.cca.edu ➞
📖 Read a response to "The Infiltrators" by Hannah Waiters on the Rewind Review Respond website ➞
🎥 CCA Community: Watch a recording of Sarah Lopez' keynote lecture on Panopto ➞
📖 Read a summary of Sarah Lopez' lecture by Katherine Hamilton on the Rewind Review Respond website ➞
🎥 Watch a recording of Ron Rael's keynote lecture below and on YouTube ➞
Joshua Myers: The Black Radical Tradition; or a Poetics of a Liberation
Organized by Diego Villalobos and Kim Nguyen of the Wattis, and Jacqueline Francis, Associate Professor and Chair, VCS; Associate Professor, Visual Studies
This lecture took place on Wednesday, October 21, 2020 and was the first in a new series titled Land to Light On, a new collaborative public programming series between the Wattis Institute and CCA's academic departments focusing on racial capitalism, abolition, and decolonization.
Joshua Myers is associate professor of Africana Studies at Howard University. He is a writer and editor of A Gathering Together: Literary Journal and the author most recently of We are Worth Fighting For: A History of the Howard University Student Protest of 1989. He is currently working on a biography of Cedric J. Robinson and book on Black Studies and the nature and meaning of disciplinarity.
BIPOC Virtual Open Print Studio Artists' Talks
Organized by Jaime Knight, Assistant Professor, Printmedia Program
In fall 2020, CCA@CCA and the CCA Printmedia Program offered project grants of up to $100.00 to students interested in making print projects to celebrate and advocate for BIPOC cultural production, to communicate, protest, educate, and inform the public around issues of anti-Blackness and structural racism. The grants supported materials purchases, professional print services and distribution.
The BIPOC Virtual Open Print Studio also hosted a guest artist series:
- Thursday, October 22, 2020: Steph Rue Artist's Talk. Steph Rue is a book artist and papermaker. She received her MFA in book arts from the University of Iowa Center for the Book in 2015. She studied traditional Korean book and papermaking on a Fulbright to Korea in 2015-2016.
- Wednesday, November 11, 2020: Artist's talk with San Francisco-based artist Mansur Nurullah. Mansur is a textile artist who transforms materials that are bound for the trash into tapestries, bags, dolls, and wallets.
- Wednesday, November 18, 2020: Aaron Coleman Artist's Talk. Aaron Coleman’s studio practice comprises an amalgam of creative processes and historical research. Coleman utilizes printmaking, painting, collage, sculpture, and installation to create works that address how mundane and seemingly anodyne artifacts embody the complex and pervasive history of race/racism and class/classicism in the United States.
- Wednesday, November 25, 2020: Jonathan Herrera Soto Artist's Talk. Jonathan Herrera Soto is a print-based studio artist. He graduated with a BFA from the Minneapolis College in Art and Design in 2017. As a printmaker, Jonathan Herrera Soto’s practice is in service to the ceremony of material exploration. He visually articulates relationships between collective memory and historical instances of state-sponsored violence and trauma inflicted on politicized bodies by constructing print-based objects, installations, and environments that echo ghosts and lived experiences of those who are no longer with us.
🎥 Watch a recording of Steph Rue's Artist's Talk below and on Youtube ➞
🎥 Watch a recording of Mansur Nurullah's Artist's Talk on YouTube ➞
🎥 Watch a recording of Aaron Coleman's Artist's Talk on YouTube ➞
🎥 Watch a recording of Jonathan Herrera Soto's Artist's Talk on Youtube ➞
Believe in Truth: Painting Program Student-Led Roundtable Discussion
Organized by Linda Geary, Professor, Painting and Drawing Program
This roundtable discussion (Wednesday, October 28, 2020) was presented in conjunction with Believe In Truth, a Painting program exhibition leading up to the election.
📖 Read a response to this event by Gordon Fung on the Rewind Review Respond website ➞
💻 View Believe in Truth on the Painting and Drawing Program's Instagram page ➞
WE'ave THE PEOPLE
Organized by Susanne Cockrell, Associate Professor, Community Arts Program
What possibilities do we see for reclaiming our civic lives and building cultures of gratitude and collectivity? WE'ave THE PEOPLE is an activation of 12 public rituals synchronized in time on US election day November 3, 2020. From San Francisco to Sydney to Bogota, students instigate symbolic gestures attending to ruptures and repair. A virtual exhibition of project documentation and writing opened on November 17, 2020 at weavethepeople.cca.edu. Participating artists: Leonardo Barrera, Sarah Chieko Bonnickson, Gwen Dongfeng, Rosie Linares Diaz, Carolos Medellin, Rachel Parish, Nivedita Rajendra, Miguel Sarabia, Consuelo Hernandez, Jamin Viducic, Jianyou Zhang, and Minyue Zhou.
📖 Read a response to this exhibition by Sarah Chieko Bonnickson on the Rewind Review Respond website ➞
Alt Knowledges Exhibition Series
Organized by christopher hamamoto, Assistant Professor, Graphic Design Program
Alt Knowledges, launched on Thursday, December 10, 2020, explores alternative values through the work of Amy Suo Wu, Danielle Aubert, and Hardworking Goodlooking. This student-led series of solo-exhibitions presents models for challenging entrenched colonial and capitalist systems through privacy tactics, worker-run presses, and a rethinking of modernist design values. Alt Knowledges was initiated by the Graphic Design Program with support from IF/THEN.
Unfaithful Kami was designed by Kaja Berry, Ji Yun Kim, Yixun Li, Ruiyi Liu, and Janel Mitchell. No. 7 was designed by Jennifer Jang, Karina Kristensen, Alia Moussa, and Darian Newman. Turn on the Invisible Layers was designed by Menaja Ganesh, Chiao Huang, Howsem Huang, Aashi Jhaveri, and Xiaoyi Yang.
📖 Read a review of Unfaithful Kami by Rachel Poonsiriwong on the Rewind Review Respond website ➞
📖 Read a review of No. 7 by Gordon Fung on the Rewind Review Respond website ➞
🎥 CCA Community: Watch a recording of an artist talk by Amy Suo Wu on Panopto ➞
What does it mean to be in community now?
Organized by Menaja Ganesh and Troy Taylor, CCA@CCA Student Fellows
The socio-economic climate we are in is constantly evolving. The election cycle, the protests, and the pandemic have brought to light immense racial injustice in the US. We wanted to remind you that the space at CCA@CCA exists for you, whenever you are ready to join us once again. We will be here to hold space, to foster community, to channel collective healing. There is no hurry to process what we are going through. Meet us where you are.
CCA@CCA Artwork Campaign
Organized by Jaime Austin, Director, Exhibitions and Public Programming and Bryndis Hafthorsdottir, Gallery Manager. Website design by Troy Taylor, CCA@CCA Student Fellow
We may be physically distant, but we are united through our work as CREATIVE CITIZENS IN ACTION. Join us by exploring artwork and poster designs by CCA students, faculty, staff, and alumni that express creative activism and promote democratic participation in the lead-up to Election Day and beyond.
Leading Change
Organized by Sam Vernon, CCA@CCA Faculty Coordinator
A series of four letters from Sam Vernon to our community, containing strategies for online learning and art activism. These four letters addressed the questions: How do we engage community right now? What does collective work look like? How can we feed our bodies, hearts, and minds? And what have we accomplished together?