BERKELEY Inspire

Like the stars in the night sky, the arts and humanities are everywhere at UC Berkeley, spread out across campus and touching nearly every area of study. Whether students are studying ancient cultures or digital media, an arts education transforms the way they think, write, and approach the challenges of our time — with critical thinking, creativity, and compassion.

The arts constellation

For Stephanie Syjuco, an associate professor of art practice, making art isn’t just about making an object. It’s also about creative problem solving. “If we think of it as a process-driven, experimental, and innovative way of working,” she says, “I think our students have a huge amount of bravery in deciding to become artists, because a lot of it is inventing the vision in the world that they want to see.”

Syjuco speaks from experience. Her own work, including large-scale installations and sculptures, is the result of deep excavations into governmental, museum, and other archives. By examining and altering letters, photos, and other documentary items, she aims to reframe what is defined as history — and whose stories are excluded from it — to build new narratives. Her work is in the collections of many major museums.

Syjuco encapsulates what makes UC Berkeley’s arts faculty so dynamic. They are some of the most celebrated artists and scholars of our time, while also empowering students to find and activate their creative voice.

What also sets apart the arts at Berkeley are their ubiquity. “We don’t just have one part of campus that belongs to the arts, one part that belongs to the professional schools, and one part that belongs to the sciences,” says Sara Guyer, dean of the Division of Arts and Humanities and the Irving Jean Stone Chair in the Humanities. “The arts are everywhere, and integral to so many different parts of this university.”

That means students specializing in ceramics, music, or dance also benefit from the expansive resources of a research university, and students studying engineering, business, or the sciences can experiment with different ways of thinking.

A record number of faculty are joining the arts and humanities, and enrollment is at an all-time high. Yet the spaces, materials, and equipment required to drive these disciplines do not match the demand. “Our goal now is to ensure that the excellence of our spaces is equal to the excellence of our artists,” says Guyer. The division is launching a campaign that will focus on student support, recruiting and retaining world-class faculty, and upgrading facilities and equipment.

Guyer likens the arts to a constellation. “When I think about a constellation, I think about the stars in the sky,” she says. “I think about the ways in which all of these pieces that might not be perfectly aligned come together to represent something that’s so much larger and more magical than every individual piece.”

The following three stories highlight stars in the cluster of people, programs, and places that define the arts at Berkeley and represent a commitment to ensuring they remain at the forefront of education, research, and societal impact. After all, the arts help us to imagine a future we never thought possible.

Before arriving at Berkeley as a transfer student, Elizabeth Estrada had a “fixed mindset” around what art and artists are. “You had to be DaVinci, or you had to paint in a hyperrealistic way,” she says.

Since then, she has experienced a paradigm shift in her beliefs and practice. “I didn’t know much about breaking rules or expanding beyond the page,” she says. “Art is so expansive.”

Today Estrada’s work incorporates painting, poetry, sculpture, performance, and installation. She experiments with natural materials and explores a range of topics, including how the cultural norms, values, and behaviors we’ve been taught manifest in our bodies.

Estrada was accepted into Berkeley’s highly competitive Advanced Studio and Critique Program, which gives a dedicated studio to only nine seniors per semester. The program enables her “to get messy, to experiment, to not freak out,” she says, while also welcoming her into a special community. “There’s a lot of love, a lot of support, a lot of passion,” she says.

Associate professor Stephanie Syjuco says the ASCP helps students take themselves seriously. “When you have a space of your own, you suddenly feel like you can inhabit the reality of becoming and being a professional artist,” she says. But only 18 out of roughly 75 seniors a year get into it. “In an ideal scenario, we would have more space and more support for every student to really shine in the projects they would like to do,” she says.

Estrada says Berkeley has taught her the gift of storytelling. “There are a lot of stories that haven’t been told — that need to be told,” she says, “and it’s beautiful to see that through the medium of art.”

For nearly 70 years, the Hertz Concert Hall has been the music department’s only formal venue on campus. With 678 seats, its size suits large orchestras and choirs. But what about vocal quartets? A gamelan ensemble?

Following an extensive renovation made possible by philanthropy, a former lecture room in Morrison Hall has reopened as the Helen and Thomas Wu Performance Hall. The intimate venue includes 100 new seats, a larger stage, and state-of-the-art sound, lighting, and digital technology.

The hall is named after the parents of Laurene Wu McClain ’64, J.D. ’82. Her father was a prominent piano player in San Francisco’s Chinatown, and her mother would sit on his piano bench and swoon.

“I started loving music at a very early period of my life,” says Wu McClain, who regularly attends music events on campus with her husband, Charles. “We always felt that listening to music added to our lives.”

The hall’s arrival comes at an exciting time. Since 2020, the music major’s numbers have doubled, says department chair David Milnes. “Kids want to study, play, and perform music. The concert halls are just exploding with their enthusiasm and talent!”

Several years ago, the department revised its curriculum and performance ensembles to appeal to a variety of talents and interests, including gospel, Chinese music, and Latin jazz.

“Most of the musicians I’ve had a chance to meet are double majors,” says Wu McClain. “They’re people who are highly motivated to find careers while pursuing something they love, which is music. Being in a small group like a baroque ensemble or chorus teaches students skills they can use in the future, like the ability to collaborate.”

Most University of California schools excel at film and media practice and research. But a distinctive focus sets Berkeley’s program apart, according to associate professor Damon Young. “We bring a real tradition of critique and analysis and theory and interpretation,” he says, “thinking in big picture ways about how meaning is made, what the nature of creative expression is, and how it transforms the way we inhabit the world.”

Today’s students, smartphones in hand, start college already knowing how to make media. Providing them with tools to understand it differently, says Young, can transform the way they make things and see the world. His assignments often merge practice and theory, whether students are making videos or reimagining film scenes with different concepts, e.g., applying feminist theory to an Alfred Hitchcock thriller.

While film and media classes fill up, and there’s a waitlist, Berkeley can’t fully accommodate the demand or the students’ capacity to create. “They’re very used to working with what they have available to do amazing things, and that’s part of the excitement of this place,” he says. Yet the university needs cameras, sound and lighting equipment, and other resources. Young also notes that students from low-income backgrounds may not have their own phones or laptops, creating another barrier to creativity.

“We would love to be able to provide students, no matter what their background is, with the facilities and resources to really bring their projects to a higher level,” he says, while also supporting their professional goals in a media-driven world.

Watch this accompanying video, or visit artshumanities.berkeley.edu/constellation to learn more.