2023 Cohort Group Show

Hello! My name is mika Castañeda and I am organizing this fundraiser on behalf of the University of California San Diego’s 2023 Visual Arts MFA cohort.

The 2023 cohort is looking for financial support in order to pay fees necessary to produce, organize, install, curate, and publicize a group show showcasing our work and collective conversations. We are aiming to raise as close to our $5,000.00 goal as possible and are accepting donations of any amount.

Press Release:

UCSD MFA Graduating Cohort presents Sites of Blood and Water

at VIELMETTER LOS ANGELES

[Los Angeles, CA]—The Visual Arts MFA graduating cohort from The University of California San Diego will present a group exhibition titled Sites of Blood and Water, at Vielmetter Los Angeles, Greenhouse gallery at 1700 S. Santa Fe, Los Angeles, CA 90021, from July 29, 2023 through August 12, 2023. The opening reception is Saturday, July 29, 2023, 4pm-6pm and is free and open to the public. Sites of Blood and Water, curated by beck haberstroh and Naomi Nadreau, will include artwork by Amir Saadiq, Arlene Mejorado, Cat Gunn, Hazel Katz, Heige Kim, Jack Coventry, Lorena Ochoa, DIA PHANO Collective (Claire Anderson, Maria Mathioudakis and Grace Wardlaw), mika Castañeda, Sabrina Piersol, and Wren Gardiner.

The artists gathered in this exhibition engage in the hard work of negotiating belonging - to a nation, to a time, to a family, and to each other. Sites of Blood and Water query what it is that brings us together, how it is that we get torn apart, and where it is that we become a community. Sites of Blood and Water combat the homogenizing force of capital with worlds of the surreal, deeply personal, ancestral and ecological. They lay bare the incongruities between one-size-fits-all ‘advancements’ and the subjective strangeness of people’s lived experiences. These artists reveal the power of a community being able to see itself while seeing oneself won’t always be a clear reflection.

“Blood is thicker than water” is often used to communicate that genetic ties take precedence over other forms of relationship. And yet, the original phrase is “the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb”. The strongest ties are formed by people who share terms of understanding and seeing the world. Sites of Blood and Water are ultimately held together by expressions of profound care. As bell hooks writes, embedded in the commitment to revolution is “the challenge to love.” ###