Arts Division Projects

Giving Day is here! You can search the projects and make your gift here. 

Pacific Art & Visual Studies, UC Santa Cruz—Support AAPI Art, Culture, & History

The Pacific Art & Visual Studies (PAVS) Fund advances innovative approaches to the study of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) arts, cultures, and histories. The PAVS mission is to support educational and professional development for students (paid internships, workshops, guest speakers, field trips). It also enables student-faculty research collaborations and the publication of Pacific Arts, the only international open access journal dedicated to Pacific Islands art (check out our latest issue here!). UCSC is the only institution in the U.S. that offers a full undergraduate curriculum and PhD program in Pacific Islands visual studies as well as a PhD program in Asian American/Diaspora visual studies. Your support will have a huge impact on AAPI arts in higher education!

Support the Institute of the Arts and Sciences!

This Giving Day, please support arts exhibitions and programming at the Institute of the Arts and Sciences. Located in the city of Santa Cruz, the IAS is the Central Coast’s premier university art and research center. Through groundbreaking, national-caliber art exhibitions and social justice initiatives, the IAS creatively educates students and the public about urgent issues impacting our society. Your gift will help keep our programming and exhibitions free for all and support paid student internships, giving students hands-on experience in arts careers.

Any gift, no matter how small, will help enliven the arts and the student experience at UC Santa Cruz. 

UCSC Opera

UCSC Opera is raising funds to offset production costs and to support students as they study opera. UCSC Opera provides unique opportunities for undergraduate singers - providing valuable experience singing leading roles in fully-produced operas.

Art Department Distinguished Visiting Artist Fund

The Art Department Distinguished Visiting Artist Fund is a high-impact, comprehensive and sustained investment in artistic excellence, inviting a cohort of national and international arts talent on campus that will significantly contribute to the campus environment, student success and provide a unique arts educational experience at UCSC.

Art Dean's Fund for Equity and Excellence

Join us in supporting socially impactful student research. The Arts is committed to serving the changing demographics of the student body, representing the future of California. We are already building the future to help next generations claim their education. Through the Arts Dean's Fund for Excellence and Equity, we can work towards this goal by:

Creating an inclusive curriculum by providing seed funding for innovative inclusive programs and encouraging the creation and dissemination of new work

Improving the pipeline for diverse workers in the arts, by offering opportunities for professional development for our students

We believe there is no true excellence without equity, no true innovation without inclusion. Please join us by making a gift today. 

Arts Professional Pathways

The Arts Professional Pathways offers direct engagement with the creative and industry professionals to demystify and promote careers in the Arts. We offer students a roadmap for pursuing their dreams by providing advising, mentorship, networking and internships with major arts and entertainment institutions. We also provide matching scholarship funds to ensure internships can be accessible to all students regardless of their family wealth. Together we can break down the barriers that keep underrepresented students from taking part in the creative economy and diversify the next generation of artists and creative professionals. Help us launch new careers today.

OpenLab Collaborative Research Center

Your gift, small or large, will go directly to fund students to work on OpenLab projects. Your support will fund student interns, graduate fellowships, and undergraduate projects that build critical thinking skills in the studio, in creative field research practices, and the lab with dynamic hands-on experience tackling real-world issues!

Environmental Art and Social Practice MFA program (EASP)

The Environmental Art + Social Practice MFA program (EASP) at the University of California, Santa Cruz seeks support for its inaugural EASP Visiting Artist Lecture Series. The linked urgencies of systemic social inequality and climate crises drive our program’s research, our curriculum, our pedagogy, and our vision for this program, which aims to engage students in creating positive change through creative practice. The EASP Visiting Artist Lecture Series will invite and host artists from across the globe to share their practices and methods with our campus community to inspire and grow our understanding of cross-disciplinary, multimedia art practices in relation to social and environmental justice questions, contexts and communities. Environmental and social justice issues are shared globally, and the EASP program is committed to an international perspective that is grounded in local conditions, wherever local might be. Your support will provide lifelong impacts on our students' education and greater community, highlighting EASP at UCSC as a dedicated leader in Environmental Art + Social Justice. 

Unseen California's Artist working across the land of the UC Natural Reserves

Unseen California at UCSC activates the public lands of the UC Natural Reserve System (UCNRS) – sites used exclusively for scientific inquiry – as an outdoor artist studio and classroom laboratory by inviting artists to collaborate in research and create work inspired by its sites. By supporting Unseen California as a research initiate we advocate the vital role the arts must play in our climate-impacted future. Unseen California's Artist-in-Residence (AIR) program and public programming, utilizes UCNRS infrastructure and strives to have a significant societal impact in the arts. Your support will make it possible for Undergraduate and Graduate Arts students as well as Artist-in-Residence (AIR) to be able to perform art site specific research across the California landscape by helping with the costs of field research at the UCNRS, as well as public programming that brings these artists research into conversation with our campus and community members.

Art + Fog - Harvesting for water for coastal climate resilience

This science+art collaboration is creating fog collection sculptures to build oases providing water for people, local plants, birds, frogs, mammals, and a multitude of other life. Fog stations are passive collectors that gather water that is otherwise passing over and not reaching the ground, thus extending the growing season for some native plants, and providing water during times of drought.

HELP MARIACHI ETERNO TRAVEL TO A CONFERENCE!

 Mariachi Eterno de UCSC is a student organization whose members come from diverse cultural backgrounds and different disciplinary interests, together they form an ensemble that provides a space for students to share their talents through the celebration of Mexican culture and heritage. We provide mariachi music and Mexican expressive culture to the larger university population and local community. 

Comedy Joust Improv+Performing Arts Festival Fund

Comedy Joust is one of UCSC's longest running improv teams. We have large ambitions for the future of improv at UCSC and have made large strides in just one year, increasing the frequency of shows and workshops. At this stage what we need most is to interact and share knowledge with other improv teams from across the state; the few events we have attended have been extremely useful and eye-opening. With your support we could travel to more events and host the first UCSC improv event in years, inviting one and all to learn about the art and hone their skills.

Acquire A Cappella

Hello! We are Acquire A Cappella, UCSC's punniest music group. We have been performing since 2007, both on and off campus, in competitive and casual environments alike, performing original arrangements of popular songs and mashups. We would greatly appreciate your support! Check out our Instagram, @acquireacappella, for dates - we hope to see you there!

Cloud 9 A Cappella

Cloud 9 A Cappella is UC Santa Cruz's original and longest-running a cappella group, known for our silly costumes. Since 2001, members of our diverse group have made unique and beautiful arrangements of music of all genres. 

Cloud 9 attends several annual showcases around California, and represents UCSC at the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella (ICCA) at the Fox Theatre in Redwood City. Besides our off-campus shows, we host quarterly showcases in various lecture halls on campus as well as our annual showcase with groups from all over California called Acapocalypse (which we brought back this past year)!

With your help and donations, we can continue the legacy of Cloud 9 and share our love for music with people all over the state!