Jan 31 Saturday
Ojai Music Festival and Black Barn Sessions present Sound Unseen, a unique musical experience where the visual element of the performance is removed, and the audience is enveloped in sound as the music fills the space and surrounds the listeners. Featuring a new work by Mattie Barbier, created expressly for this event and played by members of the new music collective Wild Up.
Simi Valley author Faline Kissick celebrates the release of My Redeemer and Me, a faith-centered memoir about healing from childhood trauma and finding peace in God’s presence. Guest host Julieann Hartman (Healing Journeys Today). Books available on site, with signing and light refreshments to follow. Content note: discussion of childhood trauma and may reference abuse. Recommended for mature audiences. RSVP at facebook.com/falinekissick
The Folk Orchestra of Santa Barbara goes Medieval! The Folk Orchestra of Santa Barbara invites you on an epic journey into the music of the Middle Ages. From lively dances to hauntingly beautiful tunes of the “Dark Ages,” this exhilarating program draws from music from across England, Spain, France, Sweden, and beyond. Experience the rich blend of the orchestra’s sweeping strings and primal drums alongside rare and captivating medieval instruments — including crumhorn, gemshorn, nyckelharpa, recorder, and gaitas — brought vividly to life in dynamic arrangements full of groove. A concert for lovers of history, adventure, and music you’ve truly never heard before.
The Santa Barbara Chamber Players will be performing on Saturday, January 31st at 7:30pm at Hahn Hall, 1070 Fairway Road. With Zig Reichwald, conductor, the concert will feature the Mendellsohn’s Symphony No. 3, “Scottish” and Schumann’s Piano Concerto, Op. 54. Pascal Salomon is the piano soloist. Tickets are $20 (students K-12 free) and are available at https://sbchamberplayers.org/. Don’t miss it! Funding support was provided by the City of Santa Barbara’s Community Arts Grant Program and the Towbes Fund for the Performing Arts, a field of interest fund of the Santa Barbara Foundation.
Sat, Jan 31, 2026 at 8:00 PMThe Siren900 Main Street, Morro Bay, CA 93442
Feb 01 Sunday
This Valentine's Day, celebrate the people who make our Libraries welcoming for everyone by sharing why you love the Santa Barbara Public Library!
From February 1 through February 14, Valentine-themed collection boxes will be placed at participating local businesses and schools throughout Santa Barbara. At each location, pre-printed postcards with thoughtful prompts will be available to make writing a valentine message to the library easy and accessible for all ages. These messages will be used in ongoing advocacy efforts to demonstrate broad public support for libraries.
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.
Siji Krishnan’s paintings invite viewers into a world where memory, myth, and daily life intertwine. Working primarily on delicate rice paper, she builds up translucent layers of watercolor and oil to reveal figures, landscapes, and hidden details. Her images often feel dreamlike—ponds shimmering with light, grasses bending in the rain, or figures dissolving into their surroundings—suggesting the ways that identity, home, and belonging are shaped by both what we see and what lies beneath the surface.
The exhibition The Secret Place brings together recent works from Krishnan’s Los Angeles debut, alongside five new large paintings created in her studio in Kerala, India. In these new works, Krishnan replaces her more figurative elements with water, plants, and sky. The natural world of her home—backwaters, monsoon rains, and village ponds—becomes a central motif, a site of both refuge and transformation. Themes of fertility and motherhood, community, and renewal flow through her practice, informed by her experiences of raising a child and the shifting boundaries between self and environment.
Krishnan’s art asks us to look slowly and closely. Small details emerge—an animal, a flower petal, a shadow of a figure—like secrets discovered over time. Both intimate and expansive, her paintings transcend cultural and geographic boundaries, embodying the Upanishadic (ancient Indian sacred philosophical texts) philosophy vasudhaiva kutumbakam: “the world is one family.”
