Renowned artist and video artist Wendy Clarke will be coming to campus as an artist in residence for the week of May 12, 2025. There will be an exhibition of her work, a workshop with the artist, a screening of Clarke’s work and a chance to be a part of her art. All events will occur in the Digital Arts Research Center (DARC).
“I’ve been a huge fan of Wendy’s work for decades,” says Irene Lusztig, a professor in the Film & Digital Media Department, who’s responsible for bringing Clarke to campus. “I’m excited to introduce Wendy and her work to people who may not have gotten to see it before.”
Born in Maryland in 1944, Clarke’s mother, Shirley, was a notable avant-garde filmmaker who gave her daughter her first camera. Clarke found success early on with her project Love Tapes, which she will be bringing to campus.
In 1977 Clarke showed a video from her diary in which she talked about her current experience of love to students at UCLA. She then asked them to make a video about their own experience and this process became the Love Tapes. discussing their feelings on love. What started small, became a global project in which Clarke recorded thousands of people from around the world. Five decades later she is still working on Love Tapes and exhibiting the project. “Love has in it all the different emotions: pain, fear, happiness, sadness; it’s all part of being human,” says Clarke.
The exhibition in DARC room 108 will be a selection of Love Tapes collected over the years. Clarke chose individual videos with the intention of creating an exhibition with a varied range of ages, races and occupations. These videos will play throughout the week. On May 15 & 16 guests will have the opportunity to record their own love tape that will join Clarke’s collection of over 2,500 videos.
While a large part of the week will focus on Love Tapes, Clarke also wants to emphasize other works in her career. The Thursday screening will feature videos from her project One on One, a series of video dialogues between the inmates at California Institution for Men in Chino and outside community members.
“I thought Wendy would be a great visitor because there’s so much work on campus around making art in prisons and thinking about incarceration and justice,” says Lusztig. One of the greatest examples of this being Visualizing Abolition, an initiative from the Institute of the Arts and Sciences designed to shift the social attachment to prisons through art and education.
The One on One screening will be followed by a conversation with the artist. This is the only event not taking place in DARC, instead being hosted in the Communications Building.
Clarke’s videography work as a whole, is special for its embodiment of digital dialogue decades before apps like Zoom and Facetime were popularized. “There’s something really profound about the way Wendy’s work anticipates the potential that technology can have to connect us that I think now feels really obvious,” says Lusztig.
Community members and students alike are welcome to come, explore and learn more about Clarke’s career. This is a one-of-a-kind experience where the audience can not only learn about art but be a part of it.
Free and open to the public
Some events require registration.
May 12 – 16, 2025
Digital Arts Research Center (DARC)
UC Santa Cruz
407 McHenry Rd
Santa Cruz, CA 95064
“Love Tapes” Exhibition
Tue., May 13–Fri. May 16
12:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Sat., May 17
12:00 PM – 3:00 PM
DARC, The Dark Lab – Room 108
“Workshop” with the artist
Wed., May 14
3:30 PM – 6:30 PM
DARC, Grad Lab – Room 104
“One on One” Screening
Thu, May 15
7:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Communications Building, Studio C – Room 150
Thu., May 15–Fri, May 16
1:00 PM – 5:00 PM
DARC, Room – 151