Kota Ezawa artist talk at The California Studio

Thursday, April 25, 4:30 p.m., Community Room at the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, free

Kota Ezawa is a media artist known for creating computer animations that explore the mediation of cultural and historical events. His work has been featured in solo exhibitions at the Georgia Museum of Art in 2021 and the Baltimore Museum of Art. Ezawa has received a number of fellowships, awards, grants, and residencies, including the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award in 2003; a SECA Art Award from SFMOMA in 2006 and a Eureka Fellowship in 2010. He studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and the San Francisco Art Institute before receiving his Masters of Fine Art from Stanford University.

In 2022, Ezawa was included in the exhibition, “From Moment to Movement: Picturing Protest in the Kramlich Collection,” at the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at UC Davis and was an invited speaker in UC Davis Art Studio’s Visiting Artist Lecture Series.

Research in design talk: Krystle Moody Wood

Thursday, April 25, 12 p.m., Cruess Hall room 1105

Krystle Moody Wood (B.A. design ‘07) is the founder and principal consultant of Materevolve, LLC. After almost a decade of corporate materials and product development and working in non-profit education, Krystle found she could best pursue her passion for sustainability, textiles and adventure by starting her own business (Materevolve), which focuses on providing brand and material innovators with technical textile consulting and inspirational educational experiences.

Artist-In-Residence: Emily Thorner, ultra soprano

Thursday, April 25, 12:05 p.m., Recital Hall, Ann E. Pitzer Center, free

Program

Trey Makler

Emily Joy Sullivan

James Larkins

Peter Chatterjee

Free, a Shinkoskey Noon Concert

About Emily

International “ultra-soprano” (Second Inversion, WA, USA) and “new music rising star” (The Stranger, WA, USA) Emily Thorner is rapidly making her mark as a soloist in contemporary chamber ensembles, orchestras, and modern operas. Known for her command of stratospheric high notes, Thorner is highly sought after for world premieres due to her unusual range and fearless virtuosity.

Emily Thorner: 'State of Being'

Friday, April 26, 5 p.m., Recital Hall, Ann E. Pitzer Center

“State of Being" is an autobiographical concert experience for vocalist Emily Thorner. It is composed almost entirely from commissioned works written specifically for her unique voice by a multinational lineup of living composers.

Program

Garrett Mendelow: Voices of Consequence

Kaley Lane Eaton: Bad News

Max Hundelshausen: (this sentence here fills the) AIR

Laura Shipsey: “Lunar” from Crossing Songs

Luciano Berio: Sequenza III

Talk on Decolonizing Design: A Cultural Justice Guidebook

Friday, April 26, 4:30-7 p.m., the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art

Dr. Elizabeth “Dori” Tunstall (Stanford Ph.D. ’99) is a distinguished design anthropologist, celebrated author, visionary organizational design leader, consultant and coach. The author of Decolonizing Design: A Cultural Justice Guidebook, her progressive approaches challenge conventional design paradigms that exclude and harm Indigenous cultures and champion diversity, equity and inclusivity practices in communities and organizations.

Tunstall will address two aspects of decolonizing design: Putting Indigenous First and Dismantling the Racist Bias in the European Modernist Project in Design. She provides a framework to understand one’s positionality vis-a-vis Indigenous sovereignty and how that sets conditions for design that provides liberatory joy to bodies and communities. By showing the racism inherent in the focus on modernist design as the standard, she demonstrates in both theory and practice how institutions and individuals can open space for decolonial and diverse perspectives on making. A reception follows the talk.

Student recitals Saturday

Saturday, April 27, Recital Hall, Ann E. Pitzer Center

Benjamin Saetern, flute with Karen Rosenak, piano, noon

Program to be announced

Olivia Chan, Piano: 2 p.m.

Program

Christian Sinding: Frühlingsrauschen (Rustle of Spring), op. 32, no. 3

Jean-Philippe Rameau: Les Sauvages and Les Cyclopes

Claude Debussy: Bruyeres and Le vent dans la plaine

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Sonata for Piano, Four Hands, in D Major, K. 381

Franz Schubert / Franz Liszt: Auf dem Wasser zu singen

Gertrude Stookey, soprano, with Karen Rosenak, piano: 4 p.m.

Program to be announced

Annamarie Basco, flute with Karen Rosenak, piano: 6 p.m.

Program to be announced

Picnic Day Award for Best Float 

The award for the best float from Picnic Day last Saturday was given to the Library’s Archives and Special Collections, who celebrated the 75th anniversary of the School of Veterinary Medicine by recreating a 1957 float with tiny veterinarians tending to a giant Scottish Terrier. 

(Photo courtesy Kevin Miller)

Danzantes De Alma’s 45th annual show Saturday

Saturday, April 27, 6 p.m., Jackson Hall, Mondavi Center, tickets from $23

Founded in 1977, Danzantes Del Alma is a holistic retention program under the Cross Cultural Center that fosters and nurtures student leadership, intellectual curiosity, and artistic expression through the art of ballet folklórico.

For the third year in a row, Danzantes Del Alma returns to the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts to celebrate the beauty of Mexican culture with a variety of vibrant and energetic dances from regions throughout Mexico including Tamaulipas, Nuevo León, Veracruz, Chiapas, and Yucatán. Join Danzantes del Alma for their 45th Annual Showcase: “Celebraciones Del Alma.”

Get tickets here: Danzantes Del Alma | Mondavi Center 

Next week

Special Exhibition Showcases Traditional Jiangnan Style Design at UC Davis

Note: Limited engagement April 30 through May 3 only

The UC Davis Design Museum examines the vibrant fusion of traditional yet innovative designs in the Chinese Jiangnan style as part of a special installation. "Tradition Meets Modernization: The Wisdom of Livelihood and Design in Jiangnan Style" will be on exhibition April 30 through May 3 only.

Showcasing the unique characters in the Jiangnan style, which was developed over centuries in the Southern Yangtze Delta area, this exhibition interprets the wisdom of livelihood through integrating Chinese traditional material culture and contemporary design innovations. 

The installation comprises four sections: clothing, food, housing, and transportation. "Clothing" highlights the evolution of Chinese traditional costumes into to contemporary fashion. 

"Food" focuses on the design evolution of purple clay teapots to promote the elegance of Jiangnan tea culture. "Living" centers on the application of mortise and tenon structures illustrating Chinese architectural skill and design sustainability. "Transportation" presents models of traditional painted wooden boats alongside small-scale prototypes of energy-saving vehicles. 

“Tradition Meets Modernization” exhibition hours are 12–4 p.m.

There will be an opening reception on April 30 at 5 p.m. in Cruess Hall, Room 1002. The event is free and open to the public with hands-on activities includes a mortise and tenon experience and a Jiangnan-style tea ceremony. 

The exhibition is presented in conjunction with the School of Design, Jiangnan University, China.

The Design Museum, part of the College of Letters and Science at UC Davis and free to the public, is in 124 Cruess Hall. 

Davis Feminist Film Festival

Thursday, May 2 and Friday, May 3, 6:30-9:30 p.m.

The UC Davis Women’s Resources and Research Center presents the 19th annual Davis Feminist Film Festival.

This event showcases independent feminist film from around the globe — including narrative, documentary and experimental shorts — to raise consciousness about the intersecting dimensions of social inequality and to explore perspectives often missing from mainstream media.

Get tickets here: Tickets for Davis Feminist Film Festival 2024 in Davis from TicketLeap 

Artist lecture with Maria Maea

The Elizabeth Freeman Visiting Lecture & Community Event

Thursday, May 2, 5 p.m., 1003 Cruess Hall

Maria Maea is a multidisciplinary artist working in sculpture, installation, performance, film and sound. Through her art practice, she deepens her connection to land, somatic memory, and ancestry. 

Her works investigate and celebrate her experience growing up in Southern California in her family’s Samoan Mexican American community. Both a traditional medium in Samoan craft culture and an invasive species growing throughout Los Angeles, the palm features prominently in Maea’s work, speaking to the resilience of those forced to uproot their lives in the wake of colonization and their ability to thrive in new, often hostile environments. She engages with these plants through craft by creating vessels, shoes, and abstracted bodies, at times woven together with different organic elements and cast on her own body and on those of family members.

 By using materials that will deteriorate and decay and by focusing on collaborative making with her family and friends, the artist proposes a practice that challenges the fetishization of objects frozen in time, presenting us with a practice that understands deterioration, mutation, and change as part of the work, just as they are part of life. 

World’s Encompassed: Premodern Making and Mingling

Thursday, May 2, 4:30-7 p.m., UC Davis Shields Library

Welcome to the wonders of the premodern world, where you might encounter mythological creatures, be tempted by a devil, trade spices along the Silk Road, witness a terrible battle, or meet a beneficent deity.

4:30-5 p.m.: Guided tour of library exhibit, showcase of premodern manuscripts and imprints from Archives and Special Collections, supplemented by student works from the MEMS program

5-6 p.m. Moderated Medieval and Early Modern Studies faculty panel discussion of recent book publications

6-7 p.m. Reception and graduate student poster session

RSVP here: Worlds Encompassed: Premodern Making and Mingling