By Sindhu Ananthavel
Undergraduate students, faculty and staff gathered last week to celebrate the winners of the Give Day Creativity Contest, annual arts awards that honor UC Santa Barbara’s talent, sponsored by the Division of Humanities and Fine Arts.
Creativity Contest winners pose with UCSB Humanities and Fine Arts Dean Daina Ramey Berry, back row center, Writing Program faculty, and contest judges. Photo by Jillian Tempesta
“[The Creativity Contest] is one of my favorite events,” said Humanities and Fine Arts Dean Daina Ramey Berry at the beginning of the award ceremony. “I want to congratulate all the recipients on their submitted work and I look forward to seeing more of it.”
HFA’s annual Creativity Contest was originally developed by the Division’s 2018 web and social media intern team, inviting students of all backgrounds from across the university to submit work in categories including visual art, prose, poetry, photography, dance, video and music. This year, 14 students won first, second or third place, out of 38 submissions. The current HFA student intern team ran the contest — from promotion to logistics, to coverage of the event and preparing publication of the winning entrees.
Prose award recipient Shannon Jackson, left, displays her certificate with Writing Program director Karen Lunsford. Photo by Jillian Tempesta
An award ceremony and luncheon was held at Mosher Alumni House to honor the recipients. The event was moderated by Nomi Morris, a UCSB Writing Program continuing lecturer and director of the Journalism track in the Professional Writing Minor. Dean Daina Ramey Berry congratulated the recipients alongside judges Jane Gottlieb and Amanda Keston.
Gottlieb is a UCSB donor and internationally exhibited artist, with works on view in UCSB’s Gevirtz Graduate School of Education and the Davidson Library. Keston graduated from UCSB in 1997 with an Art History degree, and is a luxury wine and goods auctioneer, who formerly worked at Sotheby’s among other auction houses. The third judge, Chicago-based artist Doug Fogelson, who funds the Ellen Reid Writing Award in memory of his mother, was unable to make it to the ceremony.
UCSB donor Jane Gottlieb, front, who served as a judge, and prose award recipient Maya Kapoor, right, at the 2024 Give Day luncheon. Photo by Jillian Tempesta
“It was really amazing to see such a wide range of submissions, and interesting to see how each person’s experience can be translated into the different categories,” Keston said.
Writing Program Chair Karen Lunsford handed out the certificates.
Third-year sociology major Maya Kapoor, who won first place for her prose piece, titled “Who Would You Be Without Me?” said the contest prompted her to reflect on her family.
“Because of Give Day, I was thinking about all the women that came before me and wanting to give something back to them in the form of this piece,” Kapoor said. “My mother was a big inspiration, and I tried to reimagine her life through writing.”
First-place photography winner Iara Watanabe documented her home in Brazil for her work “Primary Colors.”
“I liked the environment, and how the picture looks surrealistic but is part of daily life.”
Other students, like First-place art winner Andrew Nim who created the piece “Storky,” reimagined their own surroundings.
“I decided to portray UCSB as flooded, because it’s a beach town, and bring a fantastical element with bikes that work on water,” Nim said.
All of the winning works will be featured on the HFA website in the coming days.
Sindhu Ananthavel is a fourth-year student at UC Santa Barbara studying Communication and minoring in Professional Writing in the Journalism track. She is also a web and social media intern for the Division of Humanities and Fine Arts.