Two people work in a creative studio, with one examining a complex, lace-up wearable structure while the other observes. A worktable holds colorful fabric, shoes, tools, and materials for designing and constructing wearable art.

OpenLab Collaborative Research Center, UCSC

Education and Climate Change: The Role of Universities

Three performers in blue shirts hold up a flowing blue fabric during a lively cultural performance, with a smiling woman in the center. Colorful papel picado decorations, illustrated banners, and an audience surround the stage.

Community Stations (San Diego & Tijuana), UCSD

Memory and Resistance Laboratory

A comparative visual study of three major Asian river systems—the Ganges, Hwang-Ho (Yellow River), and Yang-Tse (Yangtze River). Each row pairs a colorful geographic map with an aerial satellite view of the river's headwaters, highlighting the surrounding terrain, waterways, and mountainous landscapes.

Center for the Study of the Force Majeure

The Role of Universities in Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation: A Case Study of Fiji and Indonesia

Screenshot of the Kenneth S. Norris Center for Natural History's Art + Science webpage, featuring a river winding through a dry landscape, information about interdisciplinary arts and science initiatives, and a botanical illustration of an insect on a green leaf.

Art + Science, UC Santa Cruz Kenneth Norris Center for Natural History

Seeing Power: Art and Activism in the 21st Century

A slide titled “The Labor of a Dispatcher” lays out four facts: 10 seconds to answer a call; 123 operators for a San Francisco population of 842,754; shifts of up to 16 hours when a dispatcher calls in sick or resigns; codes and terminology learned by rote.

Emergency Infrastructure & Climate Crisis Mediation

Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom

Four people kneel in a cultivated garden bed, working together to prepare the soil with hand tools. In the foreground, one person wears a pink sweater and another a light blue hoodie, while two others work farther down the row. Wire fencing, irrigation lines, and trees surround the outdoor garden.

UCSC Greenhouse Project

Two people approach a towering outdoor sculpture made of intersecting white poles, with climbing vines and small flowers growing through the structure. Trees and shrubs surround the installation beneath a clear blue sky.

UCLA counterforce lab

An audience gathers in an outdoor courtyard for an arts discussion, seated on colorful chairs facing three speakers. A screen displaying “Color Theory,” abstract murals, and string lights decorate the space.

Platform Artspace, UCB

Living as Form: Socially Engaged Art from 1991–2011

Screenshot of the Unseen California website featuring gold text on a black background describing an interdisciplinary arts research initiative. Below are four orange-tinted image tiles labeled Research Mission, Artist Researchers, Teaching & Learning, and Community Engagement.

Unseen California, UCSC

The Mushroom at the End of the World

Towards a greater engagement of universities in addressing climate change challenges

Five stacks of The New York Times newspapers are arranged in a row on a long black display table in an art gallery. Each stack is secured with a metal ring and features a different front-page headline, including “CEASEFIRE NOW,” “REVOLUTION UNTIL VICTORY!,” and “THE PROMISE TO RETURN.” The installation is set against a dark green wall above a gray concrete floor.

CALIFORNIA ARTS & CLIMATE ARCHIVE

The California Arts & Climate Archive (CACA) is a living digital archive that documents, preserves, and connects creative responses to climate and environmental change across California.

GROUNDWORK

UC CAAN YouTube Channel brings artists, researchers, and educators together to share ideas, projects, and emerging approaches at the intersections of art, climate, ecology, and public life.