Giving
Support the Arts
Art, art history, digital arts, film, music, performance, dance, and games students are welcomed to a place that nurtures their creative vision, develops their technique and craft, and encourages collaboration and engagement with social, historical, and theoretical issues.
We recognize that transformation cannot happen without addressing the pain of racial or gender exclusion, the frustration and discouragement about the cost and stresses of college and artistic work, or the grief and loss of the pandemic years. Using the methods of arts production and scholarship, we are at the forefront of confronting the changes happening in the world. The Arts invite creative and social transformation for all of its members—students, faculty, and staff.
Art Department
The Art Department approaches art making as a rigorous creative practice, which can reflect upon, intervene and transform the world in which we live. Building upon the rich intellectual history and culture of UCSC, our faculty and staff are dedicated to and believe in the transformational potential of the creative arts.
Creative Technologies
Creative Technologies emphasizes the study of creativity in digital environments. The program combines online and in-person modalities to allow UCSC Arts students to earn their degree with fewer quarters of Santa Cruz residency.
The study of visual culture encompasses the production, use, form, and reception of visual products and cultural manifestations past and present. It incorporates the painting, sculpture, and architecture traditionally defined as art history and extends throughout the field of visual imagery beyond the conventional boundaries formerly drawn by the academy.
FDM reflects California’s and the nation’s future. Armed with both technical skills and knowledge about media aesthetics, media industries, and strategies of representation, our students profoundly impact our state, our country and the world. We are the new majority, the new voices, the new storytellers.
We invite you to join the Music Department in our efforts as we support Student Access to World-Class Musicians. Help us solidify and diversify the applied faculty with the expertise and experience to guide students, push boundaries, and create new musical genres. We also seek to eliminate lesson fees for students.
We are a new department, born of Theater Arts and Art and Design, Games & Playable Media, whose work has been grounded in social justice and environmental awareness from the beginning. Together the faculty, staff and students reflect the future of California.