CalArts Expo Returns as Virtual Event

Continuing its experimental tradition, the annual CalArts Expo returns on Friday, May 15 as a virtual event. Featuring innovative projects by CalArts students, faculty, alumni, and staff, this year's Expo features 120 projects by 484 artists. The Expo offers visual art, short films, music, documentation of live and in-progress work, and more. Audiences can experience it in three ways-access though the Virtual Gallery; social media; and media playlists on Spotify, Soundcloud, YouTube, and Vimeo. This year's Expo precedes CalArts' Virtual Graduation Ceremony, which begins at 6 pm PDT at calarts.edu/graduation.

The CalArts Expo goes live at noon PDT on May 15, 2020. All three virtual spaces are accessible at the Expo website: expo.calarts.edu/2020.

"During these trying times our community has joined together to come up with new ways to showcase the creative work our community has to offer," comments Associate Provost for Creative Technologies, Ajay Kapur. "The new techniques and technologies we have built and experimented with will aid us now while keeping safe under social distancing, but also we will use these platforms to showcase CalArts virtually to the world in the future. This is forcing us to get even more connected than ever."

Expo highlights include such innovative student projects as Colin Yeos' virtual walk-through play I am the Sun; Kathleen Fox's 3D model for architectural projection, Don't Let Me Be Lonely, a meditation on isolation in the time of COVID; and Carla Lopez's Kaleidoscoping, a social media piece in which the artist envisions motel pools as portals and water as a cleansing transitional space.

While the physical space of CalArts may be closed, the Virtual Gallery is open, allowing visitors to once again wander (via digital means) the halls of CalArts' Main Gallery and Modular Theater. Available for Windows, Mac, and select mobile platforms, the Expo aims to make the Gallery widely available to bring more art into our collective quarantine.

Expo social media features artists through highlighted profiles of the student creative team, and posts presenting student, alumni, faculty, staff, and guest artists and their work. For more information, follow CalArts Expo on Facebook (@CalArtsExpo), Instagram (@calarts_expo), and Twitter (@CalArtsExpo). And audiences can experience music, film, and video through the Expo media playlists on Spotify, Soundcloud, YouTube, and Vimeo. Playlists links will be posted on the Expo website on May 15.

Alumni curator Annais Linares discussed the impact of the event at a time of crisis. "The excitement around Expo this year is palpable; curators and artists alike are supporting Expo as a creative beacon to showcase work thought to potentially become forgotten amidst recent chaos. Our community is standing together expressing resilient hope through what we do best-creating art against all odds."

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