Tomorrow’s Cultural Critics

The graduate program in Visual & Critical Studies at CCA trains creative leaders in visual and critical fields. We believe that enacting positive social transformation requires skills in critical thinking, visual analysis, and visual communication. Students at CCA work closely with thinkers and makers who cross disciplinary boundaries. At CCA, students discover and contribute to the rich cultural life of the college and the San Francisco Bay Area, an international hub of innovation. Ten years from now our visual, virtual, and cultural environments will look very different than they do today. VCS alumni will occupy positions of influence across the cultural field.

CURRENT STUDENTS

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CURRENT STUDENTS 〰️

UPCOMING EVENTS

Alison O’Daniel - HEAVY AIR

Mon, Dec 2, 2024, 5:30PM - 7PM

Timken Hall | 145 Hooper St, San Francisco, CA, 94107

More information here.

NEWS

CURRENT STUDENTS

Narkita Wiley's poetry and visual was just published in the latest issue of the zine Intersections. Narkita is also teaching a course she developed last year called “Art as Radical Healing” with The Beautiful Project. The self-guided course goes live next month.

Badri Valian's artwork will be on display this month at SoHo20 Gallery in New York. Her series, titled "Third Abortion," will be exhibited under the theme "Your Body, Your Choice."

ALUMNI 

Hank Willis Thomas' new book Our Medium Is American Democracy features seven years worth of billboards commissioned by the artist collective and activist group For Freedoms. The roster includes superstars like Shepard Fairey, Theaster Gates, the Guerrilla Girls, Jenny Holzer, Rashid Johnson, JR, Carrie Mae Weems, Deborah Willis, and Ai Weiwei. Read about it here.

FACULTY

Professor Nilgun Bayraktar's co-edited volume E(n)stranged: Rethinking Defamiliarization in Literature and Visual Culture is now out! This collection offers new insights into the theories and practices of de-familiarization across various languages and cultures, with a particular focus on the 20th and 21st centuries. Read more about it here.

Professor Patricia Lange has been invited to present a workshop at the upcoming Weapons of Mass Distraction? Settling the Issue International Symposium, which will take place from the 14th-15th November 2024 in Copenhagen Denmark. The title of her presentation is "A Stroll Through YouTube: Exploring the Civic Morality of Attention."

Chair Jasmin Darznik will be in conversation with novelist Susan Minot on November 16 from 1-2 pm at Book Passage in Corte Madera. Minot's latest novel Don't Be a Stranger was just named an Editor's Choice Book by the New York Times Book Review. Free and open to all!


A MONTHLY LETTER TO, FOR, AND ABOUT THE VCS COMMUNITY

 

NEWLY EXPANDED CAMPUS

Building A Better Future At California College Of The Arts

SF/ARTS

REWIND REVIEW RESPOND

Rewind Review Respond (RRR) is an online forum where CCA students reflect on recent events and the ideas that affect their practice, communities, and fields of study.

MEET THE FACULTY

From @ccaviscrit

 
VCS student Katayoun Bahrami @katayounbahrami_ is included in this great profile of 3 Bay Area Iranian Women Using Their Art to Speak Out Against Brutality, written by CCA Grad Writing Chair Jasmin Darznik, for Marin Magazine. Check it out! https://
Check out Rewind Review Respond Volume 6, Issue 3, the student-run @cacollgeofarts journal with @ccaviscrit editorial leadership: @lizsliss for Academic Year 2022-23 and @emilasdv for Academic Year 2023-24 (who also contributes an exhibition review);
Great programs coming up from CCA's MFA Comics program next month! Check it out: Saturday July 1st - CCA Comics Festival at Silver Sprocket Comics in the City guest speaker series in Timken Hall on the CCA campus: Friday July 7th - Comics in the C
Sightlines 2023, featuring three essays by the VCS Class of 2023 is now available in digital format! Print journal coming soon! Check it out! https://www.viscrit.cca.edu/sightlines VCS students are cultural producers who “make” writing.
Opening: Saturday, June 3, 2022, 7-10 pm On View: June 3 - June 25, 2022
Sat and Sun 1-5 pm and by appointment TSA • LA
1206 Maple Ave, 5th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90015 tigerstrikesasteroid.com “Actually, you are a multiplicity because you
Join us on Zoom for DEATH'S FUTURITY: THE VISUAL LIFE OF BLACK POWER, A LECTURE BY SAMPADA ARANKE Wednesday, May 24, 2023 5:00 PM 6:00 PM . In Death’s Futurity, Sampada Aranke examines the importance of representations of death to Black libe
Check out this great poster for Liz G's thesis, designed by Cole Ryder. Liz will be presenting their talk, "Envisioning an Enchanted World: On Christi Belcourt’s The Wisdom of the Universe" at the VCS Spring Symposium 2023 -- TOMORROW
Check out this great poster for Wenmi Klobah Collins's thesis, designed by Cole Ryder. Wenmi will be presenting their talk, "Most Campy Objects Are Urban: Transgression in Villano Antillano’s “Muñeca”" at the VCS Sp
Check out this great poster for Alexander Antai Hwang's thesis, designed by Cole Ryder. Alex will be presenting his talk, "Transgressive Motion: Glitched Being in Na Mira’s Night Vision(Red as never been)" at the VCS Spring Symposium
NEXT WEEK! VCS Spring Symposium 2023 -- Saturday, April 22nd, 12:00pm -- Blattner Hall, 75 Arkansas St, SF -- In the spring semester of the thesis year, students formally present their research to the public. The day-long Visual & Critical Studie
VCS Forum: "Modernism and the Appropriation of Black Women's Bodies": A Panel Discussion -- April 13, 2013, 4:00 pm, Zoom -- Featuring Elizabeth Hamilton, Jontyle Theresa Robinson, and Shantay Robinson, moderated by Jacqueline Francis, this
Two Great Events from MFA Comics this month! Check them out: Jaime Cortez on Tuesday, April 11th from 5:30-7pm PST at 195 De Haro -- Cortez is best known for Sexile/Sexilio, a ground-breaking, bilingual comics biography of trans Cuban refugee and H