The Art Department provides students the building blocks to develop into creative contributors to society. Building upon the rich intellectual history of UCSC,

our faculty are dedicated to and believe in the transformational potential of the creative arts. Our department is known for innovative integration of traditional art practices. We make work that crosses boundaries, collaborating with other fields. Our diverse faculty are experts in a wide array of cultural practices, bringing this experience and knowledge to an inventive curriculum that fully engages students. Our new MFA program, Environmental Art and Social Practice, offers the world-transforming potential of creative practice. It capitalizes on our leadership in promoting social justice, ecological thinking and inventive explorations of the nature/culture interface.

Nurture new artists.

The Arts Professional Pathways program is committed to equity and inclusion. We offer direct engagement with creative and industry professionals to demystify careers in the Arts. We offer students successful placement in internships by providing resources, networking events, and individual advising. Students are eligible to apply for internship scholarship funds that provide equal access to career development opportunities for those who have been under-represented. The Arts Dean’s Fund for Excellence and Equity supports the dissemination of student research in the Arts, providing opportunities that would otherwise not be available. We are diversifying the next generation of artists and creative professionals.

Launch careers in the arts.

With digital technologies fully integrated into all aspects of society, Digital Arts and New Media is a center for interdisciplinarity and the collaborative cultures that they have helped create. DANM faculty and students arrive from a variety of backgrounds: the arts, computer science, humanities, the sciences and social sciences. We know no boundaries, our unique program supports artists whose work bridges traditional formats. Performance, sound, games, installation, interactive experiences, expanded cinema and data visualization are all brought together by a shared investigation of the impacts of digital technology on our culture.

Break down barriers.

Whose stories are told? Who are the storytellers? These qualities differentiate UCSC’s Film and Digital Media Department from others. While film, entertainment and digital media are central engines of California’s economy, large elements of our citizenry have been left out. We are educating new generations of media-literate media-makers to meaningfully disrupt the industry, bringing their lived experience with them. Our award-winning faculty offer hands-on training and tools. Many students are first-generation. Many come from under-represented BIPOC communities, particularly the Central Valley of California, and represent all genders and sexualities. Offering both critical theory and practice, including a world-renowned MFA in Social Documentation, we are changing the narrative.

Tell new stories.

UCSC’s History of Art and Visual Culture literally changes the ways students see the world. We move beyond the boundaries of traditional art history with our commitment to studying the diverse ways of seeing. In an increasingly media-saturated environment, visual literacy—the ability to understand how imagery influences opinions, summons emotions and instigates actions—is essential. Students discover the vitality and relevance of the arts, past and present. They study the artistic practices and visual cultures of five continents and the islands of the Pacific. We offer the only program in the nation featuring faculty expertise in the visual cultures of Africa, the Indigenous Americas and the Pacific, as well as traditional fields.  

Discover new ways of seeing.

The Institute of Arts and Sciences organizes arts-based events, exhibitions and programming that cultivates engaged communities and critical thinkers to address the pressing issues of our time. Centering around critical themes such as prison abolition, environmental justice and borders, we collaborate with internationally recognized artists and institutions to bring contemporary art and cross-disciplinary interactions to our community, raising the profile of the arts at UC Santa Cruz. Our recent project, Visualizing Abolition, is the nation’s most ambitious art and prison abolition initiative. We are embedded in the curriculum, and offer opportunities for student fellowships and internships in curatorial and educational practices.

Change your mind.

A small and nimble in-house venue dedicated to engaging a broad community, the Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery is a learning laboratory for students, providing art encounters for the entire campus. Our exhibition schedule is curated by renowned visiting scholars and faculty across disciplines, with a focus on contemporary practices. We offer outlets for students to gain experience having their work exhibited as well as learning all aspects of museum practices. From gallery operations to curation to conservation, students gain important skills. Emphasizing the participatory, we center student learning in all our activities, fostering pathways to museum careers or as artists. 

Support student work.

We believe music is a global form of cultural expression, able to address social justice and foster unity through creative collaboration and meaningful growth. Our department offers a uniquely diverse curriculum, with stellar faculty from many musical traditions. We promote more open modes of thinking, fostering both celebration and critical examination of global musical practices. Our department is distinct in incorporating theory, composition, literature, history and culture as well as performance. Featuring excellence in African and African diasporic traditions, Mexican, Latinx and Chicanx, Western Art Music, and Central and South Asian expressive traditions as well as improvisational and electronic musical practice, our students graduate with both a deeper and wider understanding of musical theory and practice, making them better prepared to pursue graduate training or careers in music.

Make some noise.

Performance, Play & Design, a merger of Theater Arts and Games/Playable Media, is the newest department in the Arts. It is unique in the world in mission, scope and diversity of approaches to the study of performance. PPD represents the absolute cutting edge in considering what performance means in all manifestations: from traditional theater to multimedia and multi-platform performance, from interactive installations to games, from tabletop to video. Our faculty are leaders in dance, design, dramaturgy, playwriting, directing, game design and performance scholarship. They bring their unusually interdisciplinary and collaborative perspective and a wealth of worldwide relationships. We are inventing new areas of research and artistic inquiry in the productive zone that performance encompasses.

Play with us.