MFA students featured in exhibition at AD&A Museum

Graduating artists in UC Santa Barbara's Master of Fine Arts will show their work in the exhibition "Fault Lines" at the Art, Design & Architecture Museum (May 23-Jun 7). Featured artists include Tiffany Aiello, Alexis Childress, Hope Christofferson, Emily d'Achiardi, Negar Farajiani, Vivek Karthikeyan and KeyShawn Scott.

"Fault Lines" brings together each artists' physical and conceptual lines of inquiry into a shifting, evolving conversation, where investigation and creating tensions and new worlds are possible. These artists break with linearity and overturn expectations for lines to mark boundaries. Collectively their work asks visitors to examine their own perceptions of fault lines as not only splits, but also openings in existing, constructed and imagined realms.

An installation by d'Achiardi challenges visitors' understandings of fact and fiction through a generated experience with real and invented news headlines. Drawing on Buddhist and Hindu contemplative practices, Karthikeyan's expanded cinema installation explores ways in which moving images can model our subjective experience of consciousness. Handmade anthropomorphic animal masks and paintings by Aiello engage with queer and neurodivergent identities at the intersection of simulation, reality and performance.

Christofferson's creation of new realities connects human design to nature through living spaces for animals and humans. Childress pairs digital sculpture with a reconstructed corn field to highlight the systemic forces of racism and related experiences of isolation within rural topographies.

A full-scale grocery store aisle by Scott demonstrates how the physicality of barriers, like security glass in these spaces, spotlight the social and cultural policing of minoritized bodies. Farajiani exhibits three interrelated components: soft sculpture, video and public artwork, located outside the museum. Her project speaks to embedded networks of resilience and memory, both in materials and collaborators on campus and the artist's homeland of Iran.

Fault lines, both metaphorical and material, disrupt our understanding of the nature of boundaries as impenetrable. Upon closer inspection, these apparent divides are invitations to transgress and generate anew. "Fault Lines" is organized by the AD&A Museum and the Department of Art at UCSB. Curatorial text is by Alida Jekabson, PhD candidate, and Kristin Yinger, PhD student, in the Department of History of Art and Architecture. The exhibition is made possible thanks to the support of the Division of Humanities and Fine Arts.

Tiffany Aiello's thesis project explores the relationship between identity and nonhuman performance, using objects like puppets, costumes, masks and digital avatars as vessels for expression.

Vivek Karthikeyan is interested in reimagining moving image as a medium of phenomenological perception rather than visual storytelling. Drawing from disciplines including cognitive psychology, South Asian philosophy and contemporary philosophy of mind, he creates immersive hybrid installations that combine traditional time-and-lens based video, sound, creative coding and VR technology.

KeyShawn Scott works across drawing and installation. His drawings celebrate Black culture while addressing Black experiences and challenging stereotypes. His installations critically engage with American education systems and the ways grocery store settings oversimplify complex systemic issues.

Negar Farajiani is a multimedia artist. Her thesis explores weaving as a social and embodied practice. Drawing on her experience as an artist, mother and migrant, she approaches weaving not only as a material technique but also as a way of building community, memory and resilience. With a focus on socially engaged art and networking, her work builds connections between individuals and communities. Through collective weaving, installation and her essay film, the project creates temporary spaces for gathering and storytelling, both inside and outside the museum.

A public reception will be held Saturday, May 23, 5:30-7:30 p.m. at the AD&A Museum. Light refreshments will be served. An MFA Roundtable Discussion will be held on Thursday, May 28, 5-6:50 p.m. in the Interactive Learning Pavilion / ILP 2101. "Self as Montage in Latent Space: Contemplating Consciousness Through Moving Image" will be held on Thursday, June 4, 2-3 p.m. at the AD&A Museum with a guided walkthrough with Vivek Karthikeyan. A discussion will follow with faculty from departments of Psychology & Brain Sciences, Religious Studies, Germanic & Slavic Studies, and Media Arts and Technology.

About UC Santa Barbara

The University of California, Santa Barbara is a leading research institution that also provides a comprehensive liberal arts learning experience. Our academic community of faculty, students, and staff is characterized by a culture of interdisciplinary collaboration that is responsive to the needs of our multicultural and global society. All of this takes place within a living and learning environment like no other, as we draw inspiration from the beauty and resources of our extraordinary location at the edge of the Pacific Ocean.