UC Merced Magazine | Volume XIX, Issue V

From Exhibits to Award-winning Films

COVER STORY

e Arts at UC Merced are Vibrant On & O Campus

By Sam Yniguez On a brisk March evening, the award-winning documentary “Sansón and Me” informed audiences at e Mainzer eater in downtown Merced. e lm about a young immigrant’s journey from Mexico to California and subsequent life-sentence conviction was the centerpiece of the h day of UC Merced Professor Yehuda Sharim’s eight-day Human Rights Film Festival. e following week, a group of high school students took a eld trip to the UC Merced Art Gallery to view its latest exhibit “A erlife: A World Without End.” e display features works of highly regarded Chicanx artists, some of whom are highlighted in art history textbooks. Across campus, another exhibition featuring local artist Rubén A. Sánchez was wrapping up its run at La Galería — the university's

newest art gallery. Sánchez’s struggle to pursue his artistic ambitions while working in the elds to make ends meet was also documented in one of Sharim’s lms, which has garnered international acclaim. ese recent examples highlight the e orts of UC Merced’s Global Arts Studies Program (GASP) to enrich the lives of UC Merced students and the surrounding community. Making Room For The Creative When the university opened its doors in 2005, many expected there would be a STEM-focused educational impact on the area, dotted by opportunities such as the recent Mother-Daughter Science Camp that saw local fourth- and h-graders and their moms spend the day on campus participating in STEM-related activities. But over the years, UC Merced has also nourished the community’s artistic side through classes, lectures, exhibitions and performances — all thanks to the e orts of a small but proud group of arts faculty members. GASP has been around almost as long as the campus has, but in 2016, those faculty members made a conscious e ort to sculpt an arts department unlike any other. Realizing how each of their disciplines are closely related, they created a major that combines all of them — thus, facilitating a “global” approach to the curriculum.

Intriguing pieces by a variety of artists have recently been showcased at both the UC Merced Art Gallery and La Galería, the campus’s newest exhibit space. Chancellor Juan Sánchez Muñoz has made a noticeable investment in the arts for the university and the community.

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