Fall 2021 Newsletter: A message from the Chair, Jimin Lee

A message from the Chair, Jimin Lee

It is my pleasure to welcome you -- to our first ever departmental newsletter!

During our last four quarters of remote teaching, our committed students, devoted faculty and staff were an exceptional team making the best outcome possible in spite of all the many challenges. I was amazed at the quality of work our students were able to create using innovative techniques from their homes during covid. You can still visit our virtual “open studios” online exhibitions. I am sure they are still alive.

We are very thrilled to return to our on-campus studios for in-person instruction. Our hard working and dedicated studio technicians have upgraded all of our studios. We are in the midst of an ongoing effort to upgrade the new multimedia studio space with the latest equipment for our art majors’ research and class projects. This space will be a multi-computer facility dedicated to integrating creative technology and interdisciplinary research with teaching and learning. We envision this as a communal space where students congregate to experiment, be creative and to research their concepts.

With a very generous gift from one of our alumni families, we were able to upgrade our Bronze Foundry, the last fully operational bronze foundry in the UC system. We would like to express our deep gratitude to the Lisa and Ernest Auerbach Family Foundation for their continued support.

This is our first year having both BA and MFA programs. The Environmental Art and Social Practice (EASP) MFA program is a two-year, cross-disciplinary and multimedia art program providing students the opportunity for critical learning and for practicing art in relation to social and environmental justice questions, ecological thinking and communities. We have our first cohort, eight talented students who were selected from a large pool. The Hahn building will house our first year MFA studios and then in subsequent years they will move to the off-campus studio space at West Side Research park. Currently, we are making solid progress with the design. It has truly been a collaborative effort. We greatly appreciate the strong support both from the Arts Division and the University for this fantastic project to create our permanent world-class studio space!

Our diverse faculty are experts in a wide range of cultural practices and are internationally-recognized artists; we bring this experience and knowledge to engaged teaching skills in the context of an inventive curriculum highlighting and fully committing our current faculty’s outstanding capacities with their passion. We value public education and intellectual rigor, and we continue our effort to foster an inclusive, diverse community for our students, faculty, and staff. We take seriously our responsibility to guide, nurture and educate the future leaders and creative thinkers in art.

We are looking forward to working together to ensure safe and productive teaching and working spaces for our students, faculty and staff.

If you would like to learn more about our department, please do not hesitate to contact me or any of our faculty to answer any questions or gather more information.

Thank you!