Hailey Loman, 2020
Interdisciplinary Studio at UCLA
The Interdisciplinary Studio focuses not on artistic mediums but on artistic methods. ID students work across artistic mediums, academic disciplines, and social concerns to combine artistic production and focused research in the development of site- and debate-specific forms of critical cultural engagement that extend beyond the framework of individual studio art practice.
Interdisciplinary Studio faculty Andrea Fraser and Cauleen Smith serve as the primary advisers to graduate students admitted to this area of study. Students in graduate ID are encouraged to work with faculty across other areas within the Department of Art and to take advantage of UCLA's extensive academic resources over their three-year course of study.
All M.F.A. students are offered the use of individual studios off-campus in the UCLA Margo Leavin Graduate Art Studios, located in Culver City. In addition to individual studio spaces, the studio building houses photography, sculpture, ceramics, and computer labs, as well as open spaces for exhibitions, lectures, and group critiques. Although the Department of Art does not offer graduate level courses in the summer, the graduate studios are open year-round.
Background
Interdisciplinary Studio was established as a graduate area of study in 1997 by Mary Kelly during her tenure as Art Department Chair. Kelly created ID in response to a growing demand among young artists for a graduate program in which they could pursue project-based work driven by social purpose and grounded in interdisciplinary research. Andrea Fraser took over as Area Head in 2017, developing an undergraduate ID curriculum in 2021. Cauleen Smith joined the faculty in 2022. ID alumni have worked in activism and advocacy, architecture, archives, books, chemistry, community organizing, dance, film, food, human rights, installation, law, music, painting, performance, photography, publishing, sculpture, social practice, sound, theater, and video, among other field of practice. They include Ph.D. candidates from leading universities; founders of activist groups, archives, dance companies, foundations, journals and presses; participants Documenta, Made in LA, PERFORMA, the Sundance Film Festival, the Whitney Biennial; recipients of Herb Alpert and Mohn Awards, and Foundation for Contemporary Art Grants, and Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellowships; and faculty at art schools and universities across the United States and Europe.
Interdisciplinary Studio Faculty
Professor and Interdisciplinary Studio Area Head
Andrea Fraser
Professor
Cauleen Smith
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Interdisciplinary Studio Lab Supervisor
Kyle Tata
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Location & Contact Information
Interdisciplinary Studio Area Location
Interdisciplinary Studio is one of six areas of study offered in the M.F.A. Art program. Class meetings are held at the Margo Leavin Graduate Art Studios in Culver City.
Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Studio equipment checkout is in Broad Art Center room 2100b.
Interdisciplinary Studio Lab Supervisor
Kyle Tata
T: (310) 206-8393
Office: 2100b Broad Art Center
Faculty Office Hours
Email faculty directly to arrange virtual office hours
Interdisciplinary Studio Faculty
Andrea Fraser, Professor and Interdisciplinary Studio Area Head
T: (310) 206-6752
Office: 2275 Broad Art Center
Cauleen Smith, Professor
T: (310) 825-3281
Office: 2275 Broad Art Center
Facilities & Equipment
In addition to studios in UCLA MLGAS and an office in the Broad Art Center, M.F.A. Candidates in the Interdisciplinary Studio Area have access to a range of Departmental Facilities, including the Digital Studio, and may arrange to use the equipment and facilities of other Art Department Areas. A list of equipment available to undergraduate and graduate Interdisciplinary Studio students can be found here. Beyond the Department of Art, UCLA and Los Angeles offer a broad range of artistic, academic, and professional resources.
Interdisciplinary Studio Courses
Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Studio Courses
Art 149. Advanced Interdisciplinary Studio
Units: 5
Studio, eight hours; seven hours arranged. Requisites: courses 31A, 31B, 31C. Varied project-based studies in conceptually-driven approaches to art making in which students' core concerns and aims determine all aspects of projects, including medium, method, and presentational context. Combination of courses 149 and 149A may be repeated for maximum of 20 units. Letter grading.
Art 149A. Advanced Interdisciplinary Studio: Topics in Anti-Racism, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
Units: 5
Studio, eight hours; seven hours arranged. Requisites: courses 31A, 31B, 31C. Varied project-based studies in conceptually-driven approaches to art making that advance anti-racism, equity, diversity, and inclusion. Students' core concerns and aims determine all aspects of projects, including medium, method, and presentational context. Combination of courses 149 and 149A may be repeated for maximum of 20 units. Letter grading.
Graduate Interdisciplinary Studio Courses
Art 278. Interdisciplinary Studio
Units: 2 to 8
Studio, eight hours. Tutorial focused on directed research, studio visits, and group discussions of recommended readings. May be repeated for credit. S/U or letter grading.
Art 276. Graduate Group Critique
Units: 4
Discussion, four hours; tutorial, to be arranged. Group critique/discussion of students' research. Additional tutorial meetings by arrangement with instructor. May be repeated for credit. Letter grading.
Art C280. Graduate Seminar
Units: 4
Seminar, three hours. Advanced topics in critical theory and study of contemporary art, with emphasis on individuals, issues, and methodologies. Possible areas of study from structuralism, deconstruction, feminist and psychoanalytic theory, commodification, and censorship. May be repeated for credit. Concurrently scheduled with course C180. Letter grading.
Current M.F.A. Candidates
Cielo Saucedo / www.sickinquarters.com
Cielo Saucedo is a disabled artist from a family of Mexican migrant farm workers. They use computer generated imagery, nonfiction writing and sculpture to disrupt notions of humanism and center impaired ecologies//mind-bodies. Technology mediates their artistic production within the wax and wane of their ability. From this direct response to their body, an unprivileged mutuality between ecological space and virtual experience is offered. In their work video games trace histories of oil infrastructure and birch trees are woven into sand dunes. Cielo has shown work in New York, Chicago, London and Quito. They participate in the collective SIQ (Sick in Quarters) and are a founding member of W.E., an ecological action group started in Chicago. They received their BFA from School of the Art Institute, Chicago.
Keep Moving Forward, 2018, Video Game hosted on Unity, 2 levels.
alma alvarado cabrera / www.pinkhousecollective.com/about/
alma alvarado cabrera is an artist who shares a profound spiritual connection to the sierra madre mountains, durango, mexico, the place of her upbringing. she is one of numerous rural mexicans who, during the early 2010s sought refuge in california to escape the turmoil of the us-mexico stirred war-on-drugs. she lived as an undocumented immigrant for eleven years and is a phd dropout. her work delves into the intricate facets of home, undocumented immigrants’ mental health, and desolation via installations and writing to illuminate broader realms of shared human experiences using biomythography methods.
Harrison Kinnane Smith / harrisonksmith.com
Harrison Kinnane Smith is an artist whose work aims to highlight racialized systems of power by exploring the interactions between material systems (ecologies, commercial networks, public services) and immaterial structures (policies, financial networks, ideologies). His work has been shown at the Mattress Factory Museum and published by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. He received a BA in Art and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology from Yale University.
Property Tax Indemnification (with Hayley Haldeman and Jordan B. Abbott)
City of Pittsburgh general obligation municipal bond, escrow account, mortgage. 2021.
Felix Li / felixyli.com
Lucas Wrench / lucaswrench.info
Lucas Wrench is the founder and proprietor of OK # 1, an art space in Tulsa, OK that ran from 2019-2023. Prior to moving to Tulsa, Wrench worked as Operations Manager and Associate Curator of the art space Machine Project (2003-2018) in Los Angeles, CA. Wrench was also the Manager of Public Programs at the Gilcrease Museum, a Kress Interpretive Fellow at the Philbrook Museum, a Tulsa Artist Fellow, and a Mid-America Arts Alliance Interchange Artist Fellow. He was born in Seattle, WA.
Performance Documentation An Evening of Poetry and Performance, Tulsa, OK, 2022.
Alumni
ann haeyoung M.F.A. ’23 / a-tbd.com
Jamie Ross M.F.A. ’23 / jamieross.org
Star Feliz M.F.A. ’23 / cimarron.earth
Kearra Amaya Gopee M.F.A. ’22 / www.kearramaya.com
alea adigweme M.F.A. ’22 / www.alea.me
Nathaniel Whitfield M.F.A. ’21 / www.nathanielwhitfield.com
Kimi Hanauer M.F.A. ’21 / www.kimihanauer.com
Hailey Loman M.F.A. ’20 / www.haileyloman.com
Jae Hwan Lim M.F.A. ’20 / www.jaehwanlim.com
Brannon Rockwell-Charland M.F.A. ’19 / brannonrockwellcharland.com
Shevaun Wright M.F.A. ’19 / www.shevaunwright.com
John Hulsey M.F.A. ’18 / www.wesleyan.edu/academics/faculty/jhulsey/profile.html
Todd McQuade M.F.A. ’18 / toddmcquade.net
Tomas Percival M.F.A. ’17 / www.tomaspercival.com
Damir Avdagic M.F.A. ’16 / damiravdagic.com
Michael Cataldi M.F.A. ’15 / www.michaelcataldi.com
Abigail Collins M.F.A. ’15 / www.abigailcollins.net
Sean Raspet M.F.A. ’14 / seanraspet.org
Hans Kuzmich M.F.A. ’13
Brennan Gerard & Ryan Kelly M.F.A. ’13 / gerardandkelly.com
Tejpal Ajji M.F.A. ’12
Ragen Moss M.F.A. ’12 / ragenmoss.com
Meleko Mokgosi M.F.A. ’11 / www.melekomokgosi.com
Jane Jin Kaisen M.F.A. ’10 / janejinkaisen.com
Peter Lynde M.F.A. ’10
Wu Tsang M.F.A. ’10 / wutsang.com
Alexandro Segade M.F.A. ’09 / cargocollective.com/mybarbarian
Jesse Aron Green M.F.A. ’08 / www.jessearongreen.com
Michelle Dizon M.F.A. ’08 / www.michelledizon.com
Charlotte Smith M.F.A. ’08
David Hatcher M.F.A. ’06
Emily Roysdon M.F.A. ’06 / emilyroysdon.com
Dont Rhine M.F.A. ’06 / www.ultrared.org
Jose Carlos Teixeira M.F.A. ’06 / www.josecarlosteixeira.com
Shana Lutker M.F.A. ’05 / shanalutker.com
David Thorne M.F.A. ’04 / www.meltzerthorne.com
Sharon Hayes M.F.A. ’03 / www.shaze.info
Sara Jordenö M.F.A. ’03 / www.jordeno.com
Karl Haendel M.F.A. ’03 / www.miandn.com/artists/karl-haendel?view=slider#8
Kianga Ford M.F.A. ’03 / ledbydesire.com
Kerry Tribe M.F.A. ’02 / www.kerrytribe.com
Cletus Dalglish-Schommer M.F.A. ’02
Kenneth Berger M.F.A. ’00 / www.risd.edu/academics/theory-and-history-art-and-design/faculty/kenneth-berger
Primitivo Suarez M.F.A. ’00 / artstationtest2.wordpress.com/about
Nicholas Kersulis M.F.A. ’00 / kersulis.com
Mungo Thomson M.F.A. ’00 / mungothomson.com