Rewind Review Respond Vol. 4 | Spring 2022
Rewind Review Respond is an online forum where CCA students write about recent events and the ideas that affect their practice, communities, and fields of study. As the pandemic has taken away interstitial time before and after an event where we might debrief on a lecture, panel, screening, or roundtable, this digital space intends to fill that void of informal discourse to a certain extent. We invite you, the CCA community, to take time to rewind your week back to these events to take a deeper dive into ideas discussed, and respond to these reviews. RRR is organized by the Exhibitions Department, and edited by Katherine Jemima Hamilton and Liz Godbey, with editorial and graphic design by Sora Won.
Contents:
- “It Will Be Loud”: Ernest Strauhal and Gordon Fung on Film, Music, Noise, and Collaboration | Katherine Hamilton
- Collegial Teamwork: An Interview with Joel Lithgow and Joseph Blake | Gordon Fung
- Illustrative Notes from Jenny Odell's Ecopoesis Lecture | Ann Liu
- Against the Romanticization of Settler-Colonialism | Liz Godbey
- Home is Where the Head Is: Xiangzi Xu’s Illustrative Reflection on the [UN]Commoning Architectural Language Symposium | Xiangzi Xu
- 10 Codes from the [UN]Commons : : A How-To Guide To Worldbuilding | Shreya Shankar
- The Power of Play: An Interview with plaYplaYplaY Curators Marco Bene, Zoë Latzer, and Meghan Smith | Eman Alami
- Memory in the Bones, the Water, the Earth, the Stars | Katherine Hamilton and Caki Rebeiz
- Communal Responsibility Keynote Lecture | Renata Blanco Gorbea
- Compassionate Movement Workshop at the Fluid Mutualism Symposium: A Reflection | Nivedita Rajendra
- Transcending Symbiosis through Arts: An Exhibition at the Fluid Mutualism Symposium | Gordon Fung
- Qigong Flow | Alex Hwang
- "The Pulse of the World": Womb Wellness with Juju Angeles and Gingi Allen at the Fluid Mutualism Symposium | Kristen Wawruck
- Niv Rajendra on Fluid Mutualism | Katherine Hamilton
- Ben Davis: Light's Highest Purpose | Rebecca Velasquez
- BFA Interviews
- Mary Graham | Kai Newquist
- Fia Pitre | Kai Newquist
- Cloris Ding | Kai Newquist
- David Marchetti | Kai Newquist
- Tung Lin Tsai | Kai Newquist
- Digital Drawing Room: MFA Fine Arts
- Seráb Sarabia | Meghan Smith
- Trina Michelle Robinson: Archival Imprints | Meghan Smith
- Amy F. Zheng: Memory and Motherhood | Meghan Smith
- Magic in the Mundane: Gregory Blanche | Zoë Latzer
- (Un)spoken Truths: Ellie Loo | Zoë Latzer
- Interviews with Niv Rajendra, Rachel Parish, and Trina Michelle Robinson | Zoë Latzer
- Conversations with Three Artists: Steve Zhang, Yiming Si, Zhen Cao | Yue Liu
- MY THree encounters | Marco Bene
- On the Paths to Utopia with a Guidance of Water | Gwendolyn Kim
- Intrinsic Hues | Gregory Blanche
- Dear Artists | Alejandro Elias Perea
“It Will Be Loud”: Ernest Strauhal and Gordon Fung on Film, Music, Noise, and Collaboration
April 29, 2022
Interview by Katherine Jemima Hamilton
“Young artists nowadays face more challenges, as technologies and programs advance so quickly. They are bombarded by endless possibilities. The lack of limit gives us a huge blessing, but at times, it also creates confusion (at least to me) like overstimulation. In general, I think it is crucial to “stay hungry, stay foolish,” and to learn everything possible, choose the right tools, and get the best out of it. We also need to have a child-like quality in our practice to remain open.”
Collegial Teamwork: An Interview with Joel Lithgow and Joseph Blake
April 27, 2022
Interview by Gordon Fung
"We might also pose that artists working together can come to know their individual selves and corresponding practices by combining them with others. Nothing delegates identity better than community. In other words, you get in where you fit in."
Illustrative Notes from Jenny Odell's Ecopoesis Lecture
2022 Ecopoesis Gathering: Keynote Lecture with Jenny Odell
April 14, 2022
Illustrations by Ann Liu
Ann Liu’s illustrations on Ecopoesis, inspired by Jenny Odell’s lecture, show how all kinds of kin on Earth inhabit the same spaces.
Against the Romanticization of Settler-Colonialism
Settler-Colonialism and the Founding of the US State
March 17, 2022
Review by Liz Godbey
"In the present, we see how settler-colonialism continues to be romanticized in the American imagination. Meanwhile, the violent practices of resource extraction and land dispossession abound, all for the benefit of the U.S. state."
Home is Where the Head Is: Xiangzi Xu’s Illustrative Reflection on the [UN]Commoning Architectural Language Symposium
[Un]commoning Architectural Language
March 10, 2022
Illustration by Xiangzi Xu
"How do our connections to land manifest in our bodies? In our psyche? How does our bodies’ response to our environments affect our worldview? And how do those views then, in turn, affect our environments and the many species making homes in them? Where is the place for radical imagination in architecture? Xu’s fluid style mirrors the many ideas brought together through the symposium, providing visualization for how 'cultural movements like Afrofuturism and Afrosurrealism can reveal new languages of spatial imagination.'"
10 Codes from the [UN]Commons : : A How-To Guide To Worldbuilding
![19.10 Codes from the [UN]Commons_Banner.png](https://portal-media.cca.edu/images/19.10_Codes_from_the_UNCommons_Banner.width-565.png)
[Un]commoning Architectural Language
March 10, 2022
Review by Shreya Shankar
"Commoning is defined as any action that activates a commons and strengthens alternatives to racial capitalism. In the land of architectural education, training in design and maintenance of a commons is surprisingly uncommon. The present moment calls on architects, educators, and built environment alchemists across worlds to root into what is [UN]Common, to form + find life-nourishing systems."
The Power of Play: An Interview with plaYplaYplaY Curators Marco Bene, Zoë Latzer, and Meghan Smith
February 18–April 22, 2022
Interview by Eman Alami
"We are constantly playing, but artists do it much better: they have discovered that play can also be a way of life, something serious, something to dedicate oneself to."
Memory in the Bones, the Water, the Earth, the Stars
CCA@CCA Fluid Mutualism Symposium
March 1–4, 2022
Review by Katherine Jemima Hamilton, Illustrations by Caki Rebeiz
"Why wouldn’t the elements in our bones remember their previous lives as other things? Though time erodes everything (even things meant to last forever), matter itself endures through time, manifesting as various bodies in a new life cycle. The transtemporal nature of matter seems a fitting metaphor for the conversation of restitution that is to follow."
Communal Responsibility Keynote Lecture
CCA@CCA Fluid Mutualism Symposium
March 1–4, 2022
Review by Renata Blanco Gorbea
"We cannot take care of others if we do not take care of ourselves, and taking care of ourselves instantly connects us to our environment and the outside world."
Compassionate Movement Workshop at the Fluid Mutualism Symposium: A Reflection
CCA@CCA Fluid Mutualism Symposium
March 1–4, 2022
Reflection by Nivedita Rajendra
"When we envision the selves we want to embody in this world, do we think about the quality of our inner waters? I feel called to draw connections between the waters that have held us, the power those memories hold and our own agency in manifesting clear waters."
Transcending Symbiosis through Arts: An Exhibition at the Fluid Mutualism Symposium
CCA@CCA Fluid Mutualism Symposium
March 1–4, 2022
Review by Gordon Fung
"Most exhibited works are collaborative, demonstrating artists’ understandings of symbiosis. The symposium demonstrated how arts education can put social responsibility into a creative practice. 'We are all very happy to have this opportunity. Through the school's exhibition activities, we not only use what we have learned in real practice but also deepen our friendship.'"
Qigong Flow
CCA@CCA Fluid Mutualism Symposium
March 1–4, 2022
Review by Alex Hwang
"When Talia introduced mouth sounds into the routine, I was self-conscious at first. I am pretty quiet most of the time so expressing myself through voice sounds was unusual. But hearing my peers’ sounds and their breathing put me at ease and helped me find my own sounds. I enunciated my breathing sounds and growled with my peers. We were in our bodies together."
"The Pulse of the World": Womb Wellness with Juju Angeles and Gingi Allen at the Fluid Mutualism Symposium
CCA@CCA Fluid Mutualism Symposium
March 1–4, 2022
Review by Kristen Wawruck
“For anyone who has ever gone to a doctor suffering from headaches, cysts, unexplained infertility, cramps, etc., only to be told you are 'healthy,' this newfound knowledge can be a game-changer. The stakes have always been high, and we are only beginning to discover just how vital this information is in the face of rising cancer rates, mental health crises, and alarming infant and maternal mortality rates.”
Niv Rajendra on Fluid Mutualism
CCA@CCA Fluid Mutualism Symposium
March 1–4, 2022
Interview by Katherine Jemima Hamilton
“Fluid Mutualism is a state of being; a way of arriving at the world and a value system. Do our daily choices uphold values of reciprocity and care? Are we working to navigate the ebbs and flows of our collective lives with clarity and generosity?”
Ben Davis: Light’s Highest Purpose
Ben Davis: Light's Highest Purpose
February 17, 2022
Review by Rebecca Velasquez
“You’re likely already familiar with Illuminate’s work and don’t know it. Ben Davis was biking to the farmers market one early morning when he biked underneath the Bay Bridge. Recalling that the Bay Bridge is the second busiest bridge in America, he asked himself, “What if the Bay Bridge were a canvas of light?” He was afraid to ask himself that question since he wasn’t sure if this was a question that came out of love or fear.”
BFA Senior Thesis Conversations are live virtual events where graduating students from CCA's Textiles, Photography, Individualized Studies, Sculpture, Glass, Printmedia, Jewelry and Metal Arts, Ceramics, Community Arts, and Painting and Drawing programs publicly share their capstone work. Each event features student presentations, responses from art professionals, and time for discussion. Through this online presentation we celebrate each student’s dedication to art-making during their time at CCA, and provide a way for family, friends, and the general public to connect with and celebrate student work. In anticipation of these conversations, RRR invited participating seniors to share their influences, their artwork, and their plans for the future with us.
Mary Graham
BFA Senior Thesis Conversations
April 29, 2022
Interview by Kai Newquist
"As I began showing the work, people told me how they were seeing the faces of their loved ones. It was then that I began to understand what the work was communicating, and so it evolved again. The faces revealed themselves to be a reflection of my own values; a kind of love of humanity that I wish to share with others. It will only continue to evolve."
Fia Pitre
BFA Senior Thesis Conversations
April 15, 2022
Interview by Kai Newquist
"If I am striving for the collective and cultural knowledge of climate events and good environmental practices, does that help offset my physical impact of making art on this planet?"
Cloris Ding
BFA Senior Thesis Conversations
April 12, 2022
Interview by Kai Newquist
"Once when I sighed, I watched the white vapor coming out of my mouth and then disappearing into the freezing winter. I was a little disappointed as I watched its disappearance because there could be much more to a sigh, a story behind each unique sigh."
David Marchetti
BFA Senior Thesis Conversations
March 30, 2022
Interview by Kai Newquist
"The majority of the work I produce is a negotiation between hand, tool, and material along with the element of chance, which is an integral part of how I create my visual language within each artwork."
Tung Lin Tsai
BFA Senior Thesis Conversations
March 30, 2022
Interview by Kai Newquist
"Rather than answering a question, I am asking a question: whether my existence is a mistake when Taiwan is denied by the world superpowers."
Writing about artists is an essential element of the art ecosystem. Artists need outside eyes for the value of critique and to communicate a vision, and art provides writers with inspiration. We bring the two sides together as part of Glen Helfand's Art and Language course, cross-listed between Curatorial Practice and grad-wide elective. This spring, seven writers took different approaches to introduce the artists of the graduating MFA class of 2022. Here you’ll find written and video interviews, thematic essays, epistolary forms, and fictionalization. We offer these as a means of introduction to a cohort of artists and writers we know we’ll see and read more of.
Seráb Sarabia: Community of Care
CCA Graduate MFA Fine Arts Exhibition 2022
March 17–April 16, 2022
Essay by Meghan Smith
“Sarabia offers us a gentle glimpse into how he sees those around him, leaving out any pre-packaged narratives or simple explanations.”
Trina Michelle Robinson: Archival Imprints
CCA Graduate MFA Fine Arts Exhibition 2022
March 17–April 16, 2022
Essay by Meghan Smith
“There was some sliver of possibility she was touching the soil he touched, walking a route he walked; visualizing him there next to her was almost too much to process. Robinson’s tone conveyed the weight of this experience: “this is why materiality is so important to my work. If I can’t connect with the actual people, I can connect to the imprints, the traces of them.”
Amy F. Zheng: Memory and Motherhood
CCA Graduate MFA Fine Arts Exhibition 2022
March 17–April 16, 2022
Essay by Meghan Smith
“'Art is my agency to connect to the past,' Zheng explained to me as she began pulling paintings out from a rack in her studio. She is deeply attached to her experiences growing up in Beijing and feels called to explore her family’s history across time and culture. Painting offers her the freedom to not only interpret her own experiences, but connect them to those of her mother, and her mother’s mother."
Magic in the Mundane: Gregory Blanche
CCA Graduate MFA Fine Arts Exhibition 2022
March 17–April 16, 2022
Essay by Zoë Latzer
“The moment that he feels the magic, whether looking at the oranges on his kitchen table or driving in a car, he feels fueled to create.”
(Un)spoken Truths: Ellie Loo
CCA Graduate MFA Fine Arts Exhibition 2022
March 17–April 16, 2022
Essay by Zoë Latzer
“Loo’s installation oscillates between personal and public life through a gesture of vulnerability.”
Interviews with Niv Rajendra, Rachel Parish, and Trina Michelle Robinson
CCA Graduate MFA Fine Arts Exhibition 2022
March 17–April 16, 2022
Interviews by Zoë Latzer
In these videos, Curatorial Practice student Zoë Latzer interviews graduating artists Niv Rajendra, Rachel Parish, and Trina Michelle Robinson about their art practices.
Conversations with Three Artists: Steve Zhang, Yiming Si, Zhen Cao
CCA Graduate MFA Fine Arts Exhibition 2022
March 17–April 16, 2022
Interviews by Yue Liu
“The fact is that for most people, art is a form of entertainment. I express my feelings and circumstances without being deliberately educational. Let the people who appreciate art enjoy themselves.” – Steve Zhang
MY THree encounters
CCA Graduate MFA Fine Arts Exhibition 2022
March 17–April 16, 2022
(Fictionalized) essay by Marco Bene
"'The idea is to remain in a constant state of arrival while always departing,' she firmly stated.
'Yes, I guess I understand what you mean.' I said."
On the Paths to Utopia with a Guidance of Water
CCA Graduate MFA Fine Arts Exhibition 2022
March 17–April 16, 2022
Essay by Gwendolyn Kim
"Artists Shao-Feng Hsu, Irene Cai, Danielle Cook, and Bryce LeFort all engage in water’s utopian capacity, putting it to use as a means to tell their encrypted stories. In so doing they create abstract sculptures, analog and digital photographs in which their lived experiences with water and their bodies collide."
Intrinsic Hues
CCA Graduate MFA Fine Arts Exhibition 2022
March 17–April 16, 2022
Essay by Gregory Blanche
"Within the partition walls of my studio, I face the challenges of making drawing and painting relevant, with forays into mediums that are new to me, and benefit from creative engagement all around me as emerging artists expand their disciplines and experiment with new solutions for their expressive needs. My work has concentrated on tonal description while working in monochrome over colored grounds. Each member of my cohort has a different relationship with color."
Dear Artists
CCA Graduate MFA Fine Arts Exhibition 2022
March 17–April 16, 2022
Letters by Alejandro Elias Perea
"An artwork has an ability, like the artist, and like the human body that holds knowledge in its cells. Artists self-determine the edges of their own creation, what we consciously bring into our future, and what we commit to leaving the past."
Contributors
Eman Alami is a creative based in San Francisco where she explores the intersection between creative writing, philosophy, and visual art. She is a graduate with a BA in Art History from the University of California Los Angeles and is currently a MFA student of writing at CCA.
Marco Bene (he/him) studied a BA in Art History at Goldsmiths, University of London, from 2012 to 2016. In 2017, he moved to Lisbon, writing vacuum cleaner reviews to subsist, until he started working as curatorial assistant to the exhibition programme conceived by Natxo Checa, at Galeria Zé dos Bois; studio manager to the artist Alexandre Estrela, and curatorial assistant to the Oporto, Lisbon exhibition programme. Currently, he is studying an MA in Curatorial Practice at California College of the Arts, San Francisco.
Gregory Blanche is an artist from Berkeley, California who has lived in Florence, Italy for much of his life. His paintings, drawings, and sculptures depict abandoned places and dilapidated everyday things.
Gordon Fung is a transdisciplinary artist who works across various fields, including installation, music composition, sound art, video art, multi-/ new media, experimental and conceptual arts, etc. With the use of unconventional materials like noises, lo-fi presentations, and glitches, his immersive and synaesthetic works challenge the viewers to expand their experiential horizons.
Liz Godbey is a graduate student pursuing a Dual Degree in Visual + Critical Studies and Fine Art whose practice involves writing, painting, drawing, and collage.
Renata Blanco Gorbea is a writer in the undergraduate program majoring in Art History and Visual Culture.
Katherine Jemima Hamilton is a curator, educator, and Dual-Degree MA Curatorial Practice and Visual Critical studies student at CCA.
As an aspiring writer, Alex Hwang thinks about writing every day and sometimes achieves this goal. He loves hanging out in the east bay, where he grew up, skating around, reading, and listening to podcasts about mental health. His cat, Bianco, inspires him to keep pushing through it all.
Gwendolyn Kim is a LA and SF based visual artist and a MFA candidate at California College of the Arts.
Zoë Latzer (she/they) is a curator and writer pursuing an MA in Curatorial Practice at California College of the Arts. They are currently the Curatorial and Public Programs Associate at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) San José.
Ann Liu is a Senior student in the BFA Illustration program at California College of the Arts. Passionate about editorial art, Ann is constantly experimenting with new ways of expression..
Yue Liu has joined the Master of Advanced Architectural Design program with a focus on Urban Works. Yue, who is from Daqing, China, received his Bachelor of Architecture degree from CCA in 2019, and returned to the school to augment his approach to spatial and formal design with strategies for understanding the systems and protocols of cultural life in cities.
Kai Newquist is a born-and-raised Californian who considers herself an animator by trade, but an artist in practice. Having dabbled in printmaking, ceramics, textiles, glassblowing, and writing, Kai is constantly exposed to varied modes of expression and creation through the artists she encounters.
Alejandro Elias Perea is a Chicano artist and writer interested in tech and its intervention by de-colonial voices.
Niv Rajendra is a socially engaged artist and certified Ayurvedic Practitioner pursuing their MFA at CCA.
Caki Rebeiz is an illustrator from Austin, Texas, and a student at CCA in San Francisco. She uses rhythmic line work, inspired by patterns found in nature, to express the emotions of people and their stories.
Shreya Shankar is an environmental planner and cultural strategist who directs Sacred Rivers Institute, writes the Viewsletters publication, and is pursuing a Masters of Architecture at CCA.
Meghan Smith (she/her) is currently pursuing a dual MA in Curatorial Practice/Visual & Critical Studies at CCA with interests in postcolonial theory, critical race, and the contemporary art market.
Rebecca Velasquez is an M.Arch student at CCA. She graduated from California State University Sacramento with BFA in Interior Architecture and a minor in music.
Kristen Wawruck is a writer, curator, and MA candidate in CCA’s Visual and Critical Studies program.
Sora Won is a graphic designer currently pursuing an MFA in Graphic Design at CCA. She likes to find hidden value and beauty in everyday objects and life through a lens of design.
Xiangzi Xu is an illustrator with many years of art training and has many styles of painting. Skilled in using various drawing software and traditional media. During their senior year, they were awarded the Society of Illustrators Student Scholarship 2022.
Do you have questions or opinions about what you read? Have you seen an event at CCA you’d like to report on? Please email exhibitions@cca.edu to contribute to our Letters to the Editor series, or to submit to Review Rewind Respond.