Mar 04 Wednesday
As the center of the vast Ancient Roman Empire, the city of Rome developed as a thriving and monumental city, richly decorated and promoting the power of the Emperor. Walking the streets today, you still pass by many Roman ruins strewn throughout the city. Even more objects of art from the Roman Empire are preserved in the dozens of museums found in the city. This class will look at the history of Ancient Rome through the monuments that can still be found within the ancient walls.
This course can be attended either in-person at the Thousand Oaks campus or virtually via Zoom.
The Fifty and Better (FAB) program was designed for people ages 50 and older, seeking intellectual stimulation through university-level courses — without the pressure of grades — for the sake of learning and social engagement.
Valley Watercolor Society, one of the largest art organizations in our area, will hold its annual exhibit of members' paintings at the TO Art Gallery located next to the library on Borchard Road. There will be a reception open to all on Sunday March 8 from 3 to 6 PM.
Tiffany Chung: indelible traces is the first comprehensive museum survey of Vietnamese American artist, Tiffany Chung (born 1969; MFA, UCSB ’00). Including more than 70 artworks that highlight Chung’s expansive 25-year career, these works pointedly reveal histories that have too often been overlooked or intentionally ignored. She excavates the complex and often hidden entanglements—of history, politics, geography, economy, and climate—that accrue and shape landscapes, built environments, conflicts, and human migration. Best known for her intricately drawn and embroidered maps, a major part of Chung’s work interrogates the nexus of the climate-conflict crisis, which views climate disasters and armed conflicts as dual systemic causes of forced migration.
Tiffany Chung: indelible traces is organized by the Art, Design & Architecture Museum and is guest curated by Orianna Cacchione, Deputy Director at the University of Richmond Museums. The exhibition is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Terra Foundation for American Art and the Henry Luce Foundation. Additional support provided by UCSB’s Art Equity Commons, the Billy Rose Foundation, and the AD&A Museum Council.
On the occasion of her first comprehensive museum survey show, please join Vietnamese American artist and UCSB Alumna Tiffany Chung for an intimate artist talk followed by a moderated Q&A session with AD&A Museum Director, Gabriel Ritter. Chung will discuss the overarching themes and evolution of her artistic practice over the past 25, as well as the process and inspiration behind her site-specific, immersive sound and video installation, Spheres of Time (2026), exclusively on view at UCSB’s AlloSphere.
Tiffany Chung is an interdisciplinary artist globally recognized for her research-driven practice exploring the intersections of history, culture, and geography on both local and global scales. Working across diverse media—including cartography, embroidery, painting, photography, sculpture, video, text, and music—her projects trace shifts in cultural, geopolitical, and natural landscapes shaped by the upheavals of war, displacement, disaster, and global trade.
Mar 05 Thursday
UCSB Library presents an art installation by artist Elena Yu, exploring histories of the Ethnic and Gender Studies Collection (EGSC) and space in celebration of its 30th anniversary.
In Fall 2023, Yu was invited to create artworks in response to the history of the EGSC. The artist was drawn to two untouched back rooms - former staff offices left exactly as they were when vacated in 2022. Inside, decades of belongings sat frozen in time. In February 2024, the Library was preparing to renovate the rooms. Librarians had sorted and removed items to be sent to the University Archives and gave Yu access to use the remaining materials in her artworks. She was inspired by encountering ephemera related to the history of Ethnic Studies at UCSB and the day-to-day occupations of the library staff, including file cabinets full of book dust jackets and printed correspondences, and bulletin boards whose contents speak to the specific interests of former staff, who were charged with the upkeep of the collections and space.
This exhibition is part of a campus-wide arts partnership with the UCSB Arts Equity Commons (AEC) to support opportunities for engagement of faculty, students, and staff through the presence and practices of contemporary artists. AEC was established in 2022 as a consortium of the Department of Art, Department of History of Art and Architecture, and the Art Design & Architecture Museum through a systemwide grant from the UC Office of the President. The artist would like to thank Gary Colmenar, Angel Diaz, Alyce Harris, Sara Kelly, Marisol Ramos, Jonathan Rissmeyer, and Kim Yasuda for their support of this project.
Since 2007, UCSB Reads has fostered a shared sense of belonging by bringing the UCSB campus and Santa Barbara communities together to read a common book that explores compelling issues of our time. Conceived by then Executive Vice Chancellor Gene Lucas, the program is led by the UCSB Library in collaboration with campus and community partners. Each year, a committee of UCSB faculty, students, staff, and community members selects a thought-provoking, interdisciplinary book written by a living author that encourages a wide range of readers to engage with a contemporary social, political, cultural or scientific issue such as climate change, racial justice, technology, memory, identity, and democracy.
The program kicks off in winter with a book giveaway for UCSB students led by the Chancellor, Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost, and University Librarian, and culminates with a free public talk by the book’s author(s) at Campbell Hall in the spring. Throughout the winter and spring quarters, the Library sponsors a variety of free learning, experiential, and social events to explore the book’s themes. The selected book is also incorporated into the university curriculum for winter and spring, allowing students to explore its themes in an academic context. UCSB Reads is generously supported by many individuals, university departments, and organizations.
This exhibition highlights the history of UCSB Reads since its inception, featuring promotional posters, selected books, custom bookmarks along with testimonials and images of participants engaging with programming throughout the years. UCSB Reads has become a beloved campus tradition that brings together thousands of people every year and demonstrates the power of literature to bridge divides, promote intellectual engagement, and build community.
"Through most of our lives and work, Cedric and I have had deep commitments to collaboration, internationalism, and solidarity movements."–Elizabeth Robinson, 2024
This exhibition documents the life’s work of Cedric J. Robinson and Elizabeth Peters Robinson, placing it in the global context of the Black radical tradition. The Robinsons were renowned for their seminal scholarship and activism that had wide-ranging influence at UC Santa Barbara (UCSB), in academia, and across many public arenas. The exhibition is drawn from the Cedric J. and Elizabeth P. Robinson Archive (“Robinson Archive”) and supplemented by a variety of materials from other collections in UCSB Library’s Special Research Collections, as well as personal contributions from Elizabeth Robinson.
A deeply influential educator, Cedric Robinson (1940-2016) was a well-known scholar of racial capitalism and the Black radical tradition, and an active participant in political movements, both at home and internationally. For more than 30 years, Elizabeth Robinson has been an educator, social worker, former associate director for media at KCSB-FM radio, activist, and community media producer.
This exhibition was curated by Yolanda Blue, the Library’s Curator of American and International History, Politics, and Cultures Collections, in collaboration with New York University and UCSB Library staff.
This course focuses on the most popular, influential, and enduring artists of the British Invasion, which spanned roughly the years 1964 to 1968. We will examine the roots of those artists in their native Great Britain, and then show how they crashed the U.S. charts on the heels of the Beatles, who paved the way for their compatriots to take advantage of the lucrative American market. The Beatles were not just the first to do so – in spectacular fashion – but they also set a standard for British groups that came after them; groups that were self-contained, meaning they wrote their own songs, developed their own style, and had unique visual and musical trademarks. You do not need to have taken Part 1 of this course to attend Part 2.
Part 2 of this course will focus on the following:
Week 1: The Animals, The Kinks
Week 2: The Moody Blues, The Who
Week 3: The Rolling Stones
Week 4: One Hit Wonders
