Unsettling: Confronting California's Past Through Art

By Minyi Jiang

As part of a justice-oriented educational program, UC Santa Barbara’s Art Department hosted a student-curated exhibition titled Unsettling California, which probed the racial history and orientation of the state. The program, which ran through the month of September at the Glass Box Gallery, exhibited 11 artists from California whose works question colonial policies and ideologies that contributed to the evolution of the state. Although the exhibition has closed, the curatorial team is still accepting works from students to display virtually.

“All these works formed an amazing dialogue with each other,” said Dani Kwan, co-curator of the exhibition.

Three of the artists are affiliated with UCSB. Sarah Rosalena Brady is an assistant professor of art at UCSB in computational craft and haptic media. Marisa de la Peña is a recent graduate of the Department of Art, and Kate Saubestre is a current graduate student pursuing her Master of Fine Arts degree.

The exhibition was part of a program supported by the UCSB Summer Enrichment Program and the Mellon Sawyer Seminar on Race, Precarity, and Migration — an interdisciplinary collaboration to study the long-term effect of colonialism and white supremacy in California, France, and South Korea — which is under the UCSB Migration Initiative.

Please hover your cursor over the lower part of the images to read accompanying text:

Mercedes Dorame

Our House Made of Spiderwebs - ‘Eyookin Wereechey, 2018

Owl I Fly with You - Muuhut ‘Avaakmeshmenokne Mochoova, 2018

To the Land of the Dead - Shiishonga, 2017

Breath, Spirit, Wind - Hikaayey, 2017

“Our tribe has no federal recognition, and therefore no reservation land and no gathering place… My work is a product of weaving back together the loose ends that have been passed down to me, filling in the cracks with mud, yarn, concrete, and cinnamon and making a new whole.” — Mercedes Dorame.

Debra Scacco

Siphon: California Delta, 2022

Siphon: California Aqueducts, 2022

“The drawing is coated with several layers of wax: sealing, burying, suffocating, and halting the evolution of natural topographies… These scars on the landscape chart extraction, diversion, and the false sense of permanence that we must now reckon with.” — Debra Scacco.

Debra Scacco

Niagara, 2022

“Three lines in cold white neon depict the California, Los Angeles, and Colorado River aqueducts… Each line is more than a pipe. It is a physical connection between people, place, and living systems at origin and destination.”  — Debra Scacco.

Debra Scacco

Niagara, 2022

“It is impossible to know exhaustively the long-term impacts of how we have forced ourselves on the land. What we do know is these systems are eroding. They are not serving us, and have never served the communities from whom the water is extracted.” — Debra Scacco.

Marisa de la Peña

Charlie the Tuna, 2022

Abuelas House, 2022

“When my grandfather Leo first arrived, he was shuttled from Chavez Ravine to San Pedro to the canneries, one of which would later be known as the Starkist plant… A tiny white shack with a red roof is from a painting my abuela Rose did when we were children… They both built connections to spaces that they were not from, having to develop relationships and community after years of removal and assimilation.” — Marisa de la Peña.

Sarah Rosalena Brady

To This Moment, 2022

“Each thread interfaces a crossroads of warp and weft, over and under, navigating two different patterns, represented as multiple worlds at the same time as textile.” — Sarah Rosalena Brady.

Devon Tsuno

Shikata

Ga Nai, 2020

(Kiyoko 2)

(Kiyoko 3) 

(Chiye 1)

(Chiye 3)

“These artist books contain the largest collection of writing by Japanese American teens while incarcerated at the Topaz WWII concentration camp in Delta, Utah.” — Devon Tsuno.

Archival material courtesy of the Topaz Museum and the CSU Japanese American Digitization Project. Essay by Ana Iwataki. Project courtesy of the Artist and Residency Art Gallery.

Devon Tsuno

Shikata

Ga Nai, 2020

“The portraits taken by Tsuno on the covers of the books are images of Rohwer concentration camp survivor, Kiyoko (Tsuno’s grandmother) on the day she was honored for achieving the age of 101 years old, and Chiye (Tsuno’s great aunt) the last living member of the artist’s family who was incarcerated at the Topaz concentration camp.” — Devon Tsuno.

Devon Tsuno

Shikata

Ga Nai, 2020

“These high school and middle school newspapers document the daily lives and trauma of what it was like to be forcefully removed, and incarcerated by the U.S. government.” — Devon Tsuno.

Pilar Agüero-Esparza

Skin, Territories, Flag: burnt sienna, 2018

Pilar Agüero-Esparza

Portrait of Rodney King, 2015

Silas Munro

Black Grid 082722, 2022

“These works question historical biases of the grid as a colonial tool and open up possibilities for personal and societal restorations in visual space.” — Silas Munro.

Polymode Studio

Fractals Ascending, 2022

“This video… work presents a cluster of modules on various fractal formations that speak to a range of perspectives on inclusion in nature, mathematics, ethnography, and information visualization.” —Polymode Sudio.

Margaret Laurena Kemp

THIS LAND IS…, 2019

Performance Documentation, Photos by Gina Kalabishis

“In many ways, the earth is the most deeply personal of all the elements, rooted in spirit and ritual and revered universally for its tranquility and healing properties. It is the very foundation that we tread upon.” — Margaret Laurena Kemp.

Hillary Mushkin

Biometric drawings from the series

“Survey to Surveillance,” 2022

Kate Saubestre

Oceansoundhighway.mp4, 2022

Hollywood Land (Going South), 2022

Ear Actors (How Amerimedia Taught me to Read the Road), 2022

“The road has served as a symbol associated with rugged individualism, personal freedom, and mobility within the United States; driving is still the dominant mode of transportation within California… Oceansoundhighways began as a listening experiment to listen to Highway Sounds anew, and focus on the traits of the sound itself, which to me, sounded much like the distant sounds of waves crashing onto the shore.”  — Kate Saubestre.

Kate Saubestre

Hollywood Land (Going South), 2022

Ear Actors (How Amerimedia Taught me to Read the Road), 2022

“The inclusion of the word ‘LAND’ sewn to the piece reflects the initial sign that was erected in 1923, to advertise Hollywoodland, the housing development – and is more demonstrative of the US’s history and foundation of violent land acquisition, Westward expansion, property and ownership [versus] the contemporary paired down version which simply reads: Hollywood.” — Kate Saubestre.

Jessica Bellamy

Fire Followers (Sequoias), 2022

The exhibition was co-curated by Dani Kwan, a Master of Fine Arts candidate at the Department of Art, and Samantha Harris, a doctoral degree candidate at the Graduate School of Education at UCSB. Faculty co-advisors were Art Department Professor Kim Yasuda and Distinguished Professor Lisa Parks at the Department of Film and Media Studies.

Unsettling California ran at UCSB’s Glass Box Gallery. Works probe the racial history and orientation of the state, and continue as a virtual exhibition.

Minyi Jiang is a fourth-year student at UC Santa Barbara, majoring in Middle East Studies and pursuing a minor in Professional Writing. She is a Web and Social Media Intern for the Division of Humanities and Fine Arts.