Past Events

2014 Artist-in-Residence: Rick Lowe

The Arts Research Center 2014 Artist-in-Residence: Rick Lowe November 17-November 24, 2014 If you are interested in contacting this artist, please find them on their website.

The Arts Research Center is delighted to host a 10-day residency with acclaimed artist, community organizer, and 2014 MacArthur “Genius” Fellow, Rick Lowe.

Isabel Allende on Stories, Resistance, and the Art of Letting Go

December 1, 2025

On November 5th, UC Berkeley’s Arts Research Center marked its 25th anniversary by welcoming internationally acclaimed novelist, feminist icon, and social activist Isabel Allende for an intimate conversation with Sara Guyer, the Irving and Jean Stone Dean of Arts and Humanities and Professor of English at UC Berkeley.

After a warm introduction from ARC Director Beth Piatote, who described the Center’s mission as “thinking through the arts,” Allende and Guyer took the stage to applause from a packed room and online audience. It was, as Piatote...

Christina Rivera at ARC: Diving into My Oceans

November 12, 2025

At the Arts Research Center on October 29, Pushcart Prize, winning essayist Christina Rivera brought the ocean to Berkeley. Reading from her debut collection My Oceans: Essays of Water, Whales, and Women, Rivera invited the audience to submerge into her world of vulnerability, ecological kinship, and the fluid shapes of motherhood.

The evening began with Rivera sharing how the book’s form, layered, fragmented, and tidal, mirrors her own life. “At the last minute, my publisher put the word ...

A Night with Jennifer Reimer and Aimee Suzara: Poetry & the Mythic Imagination

October 27, 2025
A livestreamed recording of the event will be available soon here.

Poets Jennifer Reimer and Aimee Suzara joined the Arts Research Center on October 16 for Poetry & the Mythic Imagination, an evening of readings and conversation moderated by Erika Higbee, Ph.D. student in English and Mellon-Chancellor Fellow at UC Berkeley.

Reimer and Suzara each read from their most recent collections, sharing work that...

25 years of ARC: Celebrating a Quarter Century of Thinking Through the Arts

September 29, 2025

The door was propped open, and a small ensemble could be faintly heard from the hallway: laughter, conversation, and the sound of music spilling out into the evening. Peeking in, the room was full of life: faculty, students, alumni, and guests gathered together, conversations flowing as old friends reconnected and new ones met for the first time. This was the Arts Research Center’s 25th Anniversary Celebration, a moment to honor not only a milestone year, but a quarter century of thinking through the arts.

Founded in 2000 as an Organized...

Diné Nishłį or, A Boarding School Play

April 10, 2024
Indigenous Performing Arts Residency Program Diné Nishłį (i am a sacred being) or, A Boarding School Play by Blossom Johnson April 10 – 13, 2024 Staging by AlterTheater Directed by Daniel Leeman Smith Produced by Karen A. Smith Cast: Honokee Dunn (Shawna), Sage Hemstreet (Rosie), Lea McCormick (Ms. B), Zoey Reyes (Kaylene), Sabrina Saleha (Jolene), and Shawna Shandiin Sunrise (Ms. K)

Co-sponsored by a partnership between the Arts Research Center, the Department of...

Reclamation Poetry Gathering with Natalie Diaz, Craig Santos Perez, and Beth Piatote

February 15, 2024
Reclamation Poetry Gathering February 15 – 18, 2024 Public Programming: February 16 – 17, 2024

A trans-Indigenous conversation, with juxtapositions that decenter European thought and begin to translate an oceanic-to-desert-to-river-to-forest poetic imaginary

Reclamation gathered 19 fellows chosen to participate in the 2023 Poetry & the Senses program for a weekend of readings, conversations, and workshops. Three readings, hosted at...

Artist Talk with Wendy Red Star

April 1, 2022
Artist Talk with Wendy Red Star in conversation with Beth Piatote Friday, April 1st 2022 4:00 – 5:30pm PST

Watch the recording on ARC's YouTube here!

This lecture is presented by the Arts Research Center with co-sponsorship from the Departments of Art Practice and Ethnic Studies, and the Program in Critical Theory

Raised on the Apsáalooke (Crow) reservation in Montana, Wendy Red Star’s work is informed both by her cultural heritage and her...

Conjoined Histories Symposium

March 9, 2011
Conjoined Histories Symposium March 9, 2011

An extraordinary group of scholars and artists at a symposium that responded to the themes and histories addressed in Philip Kan Gotanda’s new play, "I Dream of Chang and Eng".

Featuring: Eric Hayot, Sam Otter, Amma Ghartey-Targoe, Shannon Steen, director Peter Glazer, and Philip Kan Gotanda

Urban Ghosts: The Future Of Artists, Place and Displacement in The American City

January 17, 2017
Urban Ghosts: The Future Of Artists, Place and Displacement in The American City Tuesday, January 17, 2017 at 7pm
The David Brower Center, 2150 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA (map)

Seating is available on a first come, first served basis.
Doors open at 6:30pm.
Accessible from the Downtown Berkeley BART station

Watch the...