Sita Bhaumik

class of 2012

about

Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik is an artist, writer, and educator who uses art as a strategy to connect memory and history with the urgent social issues of our time. Her work focuses on decolonization, the hierarchy of the senses, and the impact of migration. Raised in Los Angeles, Tongva Land, and based in Oakland, Ohlone Land, she is Indian and Japanese Colombian American. Sita holds a BA in Studio Art from Scripps College, an MFA in interdisciplinary art and an MA in Visual and Critical Studies from California College of the Arts.

Sita has exhibited, collaborated, and cooked in the US, Holland, Ireland, Hong Kong, and Mexico. These institutions include: Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA), The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, The San Jose Museum of Art, The Oakland Museum of California, Southern Exposure, 826 Valencia, Stanford University, The Smithsonian APAC, the Future Food House in Rotterdam and MaD Asia.

Committed to equity and diversity in the arts, Sita has been the art features editor for Hyphen magazine, and a board member at Kearny Street Workshop. She has been a Fellow at the Lucas Artist Program at Montalvo, and an artist in residence at Shankill Castle in Kilkenny, Ireland and Denniston Hill in Upstate New York.

Sita is a founding member of the People's Kitchen Collective in Oakland, California along with Jocelyn Jackson and Saqib Keval. Together, they produce community meals that narrate our shared struggle and resilience. The goal of The People's Kitchen is to not only fill our stomachs but also nourish our souls, feed our minds and fuel a movement.

A recipient of the 2019 Art Matters Grant , and a 2020 Fleishhacker Foundation Eureka Fellow , she currently teaches in Diversity Studies at California College of the Arts. Her first book with Kaya Press is forthcoming.