It’s an exciting start to the fall semester, and already our many departments, centers, museums, labs, and theaters are mobilizing the creativity of our campus with new classes, exhibits, performances, lectures, and social events. It is also an exciting time for the Arts Research Center (ARC) as we reimagine ourselves in relation to the ambitious goals of our Chancellor’s Arts + Design Initiative at Berkeley. ARC will function as a research platform within the Initiative, providing a commons for the many faculty and campus organizations engaged in cutting-edge arts + design research and public inquiry.
In.i.ti.a.tive:
1) An act or strategy intended to improve a situation.2) Of or relating to initiation; introductory, preliminary. While we take “preliminary” steps to “improve” — indeed to catalyze — creative thinking, learning, and making on our campus and in our public life, one of the Arts + Design Initiative’s first projects will be to build a new arts and design website that makes visible the sheer range of what we have to offer on this incredible campus and in our wider community. In the meantime, ARC and its current website will continue to promote innovative research, creation in the arts and design, AND simultaneously expand our “PICKS” to feature a wider panoply of activity and engagement opportunities. At a time when so many tout the importance of “creativity,” UC Berkeley offers a distinctively bracing context for creative experiment, one enriched by the scientific and cultural wealth of a world-class research university, and propelled by an historic public mission committed to access, equity and social impact. As our faculty, students, and collaborators explore the arts and design in relation to new technologies, as a force in a globalizing world, and as a platform to advance the public interest, ARC | Arts + Design seeks to dynamize and to publicize a wide range of creative inquiry.To learn more about this exciting time at UC Berkeley, join our ARC | Arts + Design Newsletter to receive updates on on the Initiative and to learn more about events, news, and opportunities. All semester long, our many academic departments, centers, clubs, and presenting organizations will host events highlighting work by students, UC Berkeley faculty, and an international array of visiting artists and scholars.
View the ARTS + DESIGN Season at UC Berkeley, as listed below by Department:
Academic Departments and Schools:
Art PracticeArchitectureCity and Regional PlanningComparative LiteratureEast Asian Languages & CulturesEnglishFilm and MediaHistory of ArtJournalism SchoolLandscape ArchitectureMusicRhetoricSouth & Southeast Asian StudiesTheater, Dance, and Performance Studies
Research/interdisciplinary Centers
Berkeley Center for New MediaBerkeley Center for the Study of ReligionBerkeley Institute of DesignCenter for New Music and Audio TechnologiesCritical TheoryGlobal Urban Humanities Initiative Jacobs Institute for Design InnovationDoreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities
Presenting Organizations and Galleries
The Bancroft LibraryBerkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film ArchiveCal PerformancesPhoebe A. Hearst Museum of AnthropologyLawrence Hall of ScienceThe Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and LifeReva and David Logan Gallery of Documentary PhotographyUC Botanical Garden at BerkeleyWurster Hall GalleryWorth Ryder Art Gallery
If you don’t see your department here, and want to be included, please email Lauren Pearson at lauren.pearson@berkeley.edu.