We are excited to share our newest publications in person at the Jersey Art Book Fair on May 1-3, 2026 at Mana Contemporary, Jersey City, NJ. We are excited to share new Hox Zodiac prints, postcards, and journals designed by Maryam Razi who hosted the most recent Hox Zodiac online dinner honoring the Lunar New Year of the Fire Horse, with the guest artist CC Hart. We will also feature the limited edition [Alien] Star Dust Artist Book and postcards designed by Ivy Lovett.
On Sunday, May 3 from 4:30-6pm, Victoria and Maryam will lead a participatory performance, "HOX Year of the Fire Horse: A Tasting Ritual" at the Framing Gallery at Mana Contemporary at the JAB Fair. Presented as a live, durational tasting ritual, the experience unfolds in cycles, allowing visitors to enter and exit freely. Centered on the Fire Horse—an emblem of intensity, transformation, movement, and passion—participants engage through taste, smell, sound, and collective ritual. Each tasting becomes a portal, linking the body to planetary cycles, mythology, and contemporary life.
In traditional Chinese medicine, the Horse is associated with the Heart—governing blood and consciousness (Shen).
This is not a demo. It is a shared activation.
If you are in NJ / NY area, drop into our booth and join us for the performance!
The UCLA Art|Sci Center invites you to join us for the culminating event of the Atmosphere of Sound series, presented as part of the Getty Pacific Standard Time initiative. This final offering takes the form of a participatory soundwalk titled Breathing for Interdependence, created by Polish artist and theorist Anna Nacher.
Designed as a 20-minute journey from the North to the South side of the UCLA campus, the walk is a meditative exploration of breath, environment, and interconnectedness. Anna’s soundwalk will lead you from the north of the UCLA campus to the south, along the axis that literally links Arts to Science. From the Broad Art Center, through Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden and Royce Hall, to the premises of Mathematical Sciences and Geology. It becomes an exercise in embodied practice of interdependence, reflecting on how fields often considered separate are in fact mutually co-constitutive. At the same time, the soundwalk will also allow one to sense the simple act of breathing as a form combining regenerative healing practice with social and cultural insights on the roots of contemporary crises: ecological, social, and political. The walk ends at the Field School of Public Health and Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden, emphasizing that healing is a process in which people cannot be separated from the broader ecologies of environment, communities, and institutions. It ultimately grounds the walkable connection between Arts and Science in a broader system of life support that should be made available to all beings.
Friday, May 30, 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
More Info: soundofatmosphere.comx
Qanat is an interactive sound and light installation named after the ancient Iranian underground water channel system. By amplifying the resonant qualities of a traditional rug with the sound of water, a pendulum microphone above picks up rug vibrations, movement, and room tone, creating a live feedback loop. Visitors are invited to sit, lie, or stand on the rug, altering the transmission of sound throughout the gallery. The exhibition also includes embossed topographical prints created by Asgary’s breath and a video work referencing water, transmission, and incommunicability. Qanat reminds us that we are all born into the comforting darkness of sound and water.
Performance and Special Event
Date and Time: Friday, May 9, 2025, 4:30 PM – 6:00 PM
Location: Botanical Gardens
Details: Live vocal rendition of Qanat 5 by Sholeh Asgary, with a potential live performance featuring Electronic_Khipu_ by Patricia Cadavid.
Celia Hollander + Jenna Caravello, Ivana Dama, Iman Person, Paige Emery
Sound & Science: From Signal to Noise is a curated showcase of sound art performances inspired and informed by scientific fields such as physics, biology, and botany, exploring the vast landscape of auditory and visual experiences. Featuring local LA-based and emerging experimental sonic artists working in ‘eco-acoustics,’ this concert presents sound as a post-object art form.
The performances are intrinsically connected to the artists’ activist work, addressing ecological, social, and ancestral issues. Immerse yourself in a unique auditory landscape complemented by live visual elements.
Artists
Celia Hollander + Jenna Caravello
Ivana Dama
Iman Person
Paige Emery
Robertina Šebjanič, Lauren Bon, Victoria Vesna, Haley Marks, Alex Hall
Co_Sonic 1884 km² is a performance and panel discussion by Robertina Šebjanič, featuring a three-channel video with live audio performed by the artist. The event explores the connections between water ecology and the rights of nature, with a panel discussion including Robertina Šebjanič, Lauren Bon, Victoria Vesna, Haley Marks, and Alex Hall. This engaging event brings together art, science, and environmental issues, inviting the audience to reflect on important topics about our planet.
Robertina Šebjanič's CO_SONIC 1884 KM2 is an audio/visual-poetic reflection and AI-powered soundscape which explores the Ljubljanica river’s seven distinctly named sections as one integrated whole. Using the sounds and images of different lifeforms who (co)habit along the river’s path, dwelling both above and below the water, this multichannel video and sound installation tells the story of (co)existence among river environments and their human and non-human inhabitants.
LOCATION
Experimental Digital Arts at Broad Art Center
240 Charles E Young Dr N, Los Angeles, CA 90095
PARKING
Parking Structure 3
215 Charles E Young Dr N, Los Angeles, CA 90024
NAVIGATION
Walk into the main (North) building entrance
Navigate to the elevator bay and descend to the first floor
Walk out of the double doors and turn right into Room 1250.
On Saturday, October 19th, from 2 to 4 PM, Amber Stucke and Citlali Arvizu will perform Instructions for Our Love: Tongva | ‘Eyoo’Wiishmen ‘Ahoo’Echon at UCLA's Sage Hill, top of the hill.
NAVIGATION
Park towards the end of Bellagio road in Parking Structure 10. Follow wayfinding signage to the trailhead.
Instructions for Our Love: Tongva | ‘Eyoo’wiishmen ‘Ahoo’echon is a live vocal performance by Amber Stucke with Citlali Arvizu (Tongva/Diegueno) at Sage Hill. The performance is spoken in both English by Amber and Tongva by Citlali to a coast live oak tree. The native California live oak produces acorns, which are considered sacred to the Tongva community and are a staple in traditional meals. By honoring the coast live oak and with the Tongva language considered critically endangered, the instructions intend to reconnect the sound of the language back to the land.
Pedro Reissig, PhD, will join Victoria Vesna's Fiat Lux: Eat or BE EATEN class under the Food Studies program to deliver a performance and talk on his latest book, 'Mouth Gastronomy,' Integrating HOX ZODIAC Animals and Key Ingredients.
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Mouth Gatronomy is an original concept, born from the interest in rediscovering and revaluing the mouth, with a spirit of self-empowerment, in a world overwhelmed by stimuli and external references. MG can be defined as "cooking" in the mouth through deliberate and sequential steps. MG occurs when we use our mouth to modify food and interact with it to feel and discover its essence through its approximations and transformations in the mouth as a significant experience in itself, as a creative act. This is based on three basic principles for a good gastronomic quality food, small amounts, and connecting with oneself and the food while eating. There is a before and after with Mouth eating a cookie without using your teeth, letting it dissolve and melt with saliva to enjoy its flavor more intensely and for longer than if you just chewed and swallowed... Our idea of eating is historically based on biting and chewing since food used to be more hostile and challenging. With the development of culture, many of the things we eat do not even require chewing, but the inertia is strong, and added to contemporary anxiety, we have become more devourers than gastronomic explorers and enjoyers. So, perhaps we should rethink are we really what we eat? Or do we eat what we are? Or perhaps it is a dialectical process, which will allow us to elucidate and find the balance we need and seek...
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Pedro Reissig, PhD, has been involved in Food Design as a practitioner, social entrepreneur, and scholar for the past decade. His design career includes several startups, the most prominent being Vacavaliente, a long standing MoMA Store favorite. His academic work is rooted in the relationship between form and structure within a paradigm he calls “techno-morphology”, subject of numerous international research publications, projects and lecture appearances. His interest in the transdiscipline of Food Design is motivated by rethinking and redefining the sense and role it can play for us as people, professionals and society. This search for a meaningful and useful “Food Design for improving our food lives” has led him to found the Latin American Food Design Network (www.lafooddesign.org) and create an FD Educational Platform (www.fdxe.org). Also his personal interest in design morphology paved the way for his FD agency in Buenos Aires (www.demorfa.com). His most recent work includes the publication of the book, in Spanish for now, “Food Design: hacia un eco-sistema alimentario”, the launching of the “Revista Latinoamericana de Food Design: comes lo que eres” (Latin American FD Journal: you eat what you are), and most currently, the publication of the research project “Gastronomía Bucal” (Mouth Gastronomy).
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FIAT LUX: Let There Be Light! ✨
Fiat Lux is the motto of the University of California System; "Fiat Lux" is translated from Latin as "Let There Be Light." At UC Merced, we translate this phrase ourselves as "Let your light shine," because Fiat Lux is about your individual talents and all of the brightness that you hold and bring to your role as a student at the University and beyond.
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WATCH THE RECORDING:
Tenzin Choegyal, Simone Giuliani, Tsering Dorjee Bawa, Christiana Polites, Victoria Vesna
The quintessential text, attributed to the eighth century Buddhist Vajra master Padmasambhava, provides insight and direct instructions on how to navigate through the stages of the Bardo, the intermediary state between life and death. According to the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism, the Bardo journey offers practitioners a precious opportunity to awaken to their true Buddha nature and find liberation from suffering.
Internationally acclaimed Tibetan singer/songwriter Tenzin Choegyal will be joined by award-winning composer Simone Giuliani on piano and actor, musician, and dancer Tsering Dorjee Bawa, performing the rare Black Hat masked ritual dance. The concert is narrated by Christiana Polites, director of Tibetan Medicine & Buddhist Center Pure Land Farms, with visuals produced by media artist and director of the UCLA Art | Sci Center, Victoria Vesna in collaboration with John Brumley and Dillon Bastan.
About the Artists
Tenzin Choegyal is a world renowned musician in the Tibetan tradition. The son of Tibetan nomads, he feels a particular connection to the music of the high Himalayan plateau. While proudly continuing the unbroken nomadic lineage which is central to his repertoire, Tenzin also embraces opportunities to take his music into more contemporary, uncharted territory, both in the studio and on stage. Tenzin has opened for His Holiness the Dalai Lama and collaborated with Philip Glass, Patti Smith, Anoushka Shankar, and Charlotte Gainsbourg. Alongside Jesse Paris Smith and Laurie Anderson, he recorded the 2021 Grammy-nominated Songs from the Bardo, released through Smithsonian Folkways. He also has nine independent albums, three with his fusion band Tibet2Timbuk2.
Tsering Dorjee Bawa is an award-winning artist who has been a Tibetan music and arts performer for almost three decades. He earned his master’s degree studying Tibetan secular dance and music at the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts (TIPA), Dharamsala, India, where he was privileged to study under legendary artists. He has since traveled the world sharing his knowledge and performing Tibetan Opera, central Tibetan Step Dance, and Cham, a series of colorful, masked ritual dances. In addition to performing onstage from Seattle Children’s Theatre to Lincoln Center in New York, he has acted in several notable films, including the 1999 Oscar-nominated Himalaya, and My Son Tenzin (2017). Tsering resides in the Bay Area, where he has established a community school program to preserve Tibetan language, music, and dance for a new generation.
Simone Giuliani is a director, producer, and composer born in Florence, Italy, and based in New York and Los Angeles. He has worked with such artists as Andrea Bocelli, Wu-Tang Clan, Cibo Matto, Bebel Gilberto, and many more. He has collaborated with the London Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and directed a live concert for Pope Francis inside the Roman Forum. Giuliani is director of programs for MOMENT NYC, a music education non-profit presenting the history of music in New York City through performances in public schools. He is co-founder of Yangchenma Arts & Music, a community organization celebrating the richness and diversity of human cultures through their artistic and musical traditions.
This program is co-sponsored by the UCLA Art | Sci Center and supported by a grant from Lilly Endowment Inc.
The theme for Re–Fest 2023 is Re-New, which critically examines our culture’s obsession with newness. How can we prioritize ancestral knowledge, healing practices, and forgotten technologies in order to renew our relationship with creation and progress?
Festival sites in NYC and LA will feature exhibitions, performances, and conversations that will stream into our virtual venue, converging disparate disciplines, perspectives, and approaches in an effort to spark renewal.
Exhibition Artists:
Blair Simmons, Archive of Digital Portraits Cast in Concrete
Bobby Joe Smith III, Wókiksuye
Caco Peguero, FUTURING : Portable Park
Folly Feast Lab (Viviane El Kmati & Yara Feghali), Be.Longing XR
Iman Person
Jamison Edgar & Huntrezz Janos, White Man's Foot :))))))
Kate Parsons, Bloom AR
Kira Xonorika, Coral Reef, I am Presence
Laure Michelon, Machinic Reflection
Marcus Kuiland-Nazario & Paul Donald, Macho Stereo
Nicole Yi Messier & Victoria Manganiello (Craftwork Collective), Ancient Futures
Sarah Sweeney, A Conversation with My Deepfake Dad
Victoria Vesna & Art|Sci artist in residence Iman Person
Presented by 18th Street Arts Center with support from the City of Santa Monica Art of Recovery Program, the Annenberg Community Beach House, and Guild Hall
Swept Away: Love Letter to a Surrogate is a community-oriented artistic project that aims to create a transcontinental heartbeat across America. 65 Los Angeles County artists will present live performances over Earth Day Weekend: April 22 and 23, 2023 at the Santa Monica State Beach near the Annenberg Community Beach House on the Pacific Ocean.
Swept Away began in September 2022, when 65 Los Angeles County artists sent "love letters" to 65 artists on the East End of Long Island who responded with live performances on East Hampton's Main Beach in September and October. In April 2023, the reverse will take place with 65 West Coast artists creating performances inspired by and in response to their East Coast counterparts' letters. On April 22 and 23, 2023, we are pleased to present up to five simultaneous performances taking place during the hours of 8 am-12 pm and 4-10 pm on Santa Monica State Beach in front of Annenberg Community Beach House.
Annenberg Community Beach House
415 East Pacific Coast Highway, Santa Monica, CA 90402
