School of Critical Studies

Allison (AC) Smith is an independent curator and writer with an artistic and academic practice in pop cultural criticism, queer performance art, and feminist materialism. They received their BA in Art History from Skidmore College (2017) and MA in Aesthetics & Politics from the CalArts School of Critical Studies (2021). Smith has presented at conferences and panels including the Aesthetics & Politics Lecture Series (2021), the Cultural Studies Association (2021), and UCLA Theater & Performance Studies Graduate Conference (2021). They're the recipient of curatorial internships and fellowships at the Whitney Museum of American Art (2017), Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum (2018), Hauser & Wirth, New York (2019), and Hauser & Wirth, Los Angeles (2021). They are currently the Exhibitions and Programs Manager at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture.

Caleb Craig is a Los Angeles-based artist and performer who creates long-term audiovisual projects using immersive media, music production, and digital fabrication techniques.

Their work is characterized by an interest in queer representation and politics. They use virtual reality, 3D modeling, 3D printing, couture, animation, and music production to create experimental and innovative modes of performance.

Their work has been exhibited at Vellum LA, the JACCC George J. Doizaki Gallery, Lyndon House Art Center, Coaxial Foundation, Palazzo Ferretti di Cortona, and Tin Flats. They received a B.F.A. in Expanded Forms of Art from the Lamar Dodd School of Art of the University of Georgia in 2018 and an MFA in Art & Technology from the California Institute of the Arts in 2021.

Dongpu Ling is an intermedia artist based in Los Angeles. She works at the intersection of interactive installation and performance art, exploring the space among digital and physical entities by creating a multidisciplinary relationship with machine intelligence. She is fascinated with various aspects of the unseen, including body senses, data transformation, and theoretical physics. Her work spans multiple media formats, including interactive installations, sculptures, videos, and performance art. In her mind and world, time does not exist without a soul/ observer, and art does not exist without viewers.

Dongpu started her work in visual media, including video and sculpture. Soon afterward, she began exploring interactive media, including algorithm-based mechanics, real-time sensory feedback, and artificial intelligence. She received a B.F.A. in Intermedia Art from Arizona State University in 2018, an M.F.A. in Art & Technology, and a concentration in Integrated Media from the California Institute of the Arts in 2021. Her work has been shown at Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center, The College Book Art Association, Tin Flats, MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Coaxial Arts Foundation, and Santa Clarita City Hall.

Jordan Wong is a Chinese-American experimental animator and nonfiction filmmaker driven by emotional honesty and analog processes. He received a BFA in Film/Animation/Video at RISD, an MFA in Experimental Animation at CalArts, and was most recently a participant at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2022. His films have screened internationally, including DOK Leipzig, NewFest, Animafest Zagreb, Japan Media Arts Festival, and the Ann Arbor Film Festival, where he was awarded the Tom Berman Award for Most Promising Filmmaker for the film "Mom's Clothes".

Alex Michel is a first-generation Caribbean American from Bloomfield, Connecticut and based in Los Angeles. Alex does a lot of things, but currentlyis focused on making films; directing, producing, writing, editing. In 2021, Alex earned a MFA in Film Directing from CalArts. Alex's work explores blackness, absurdity, plants/nature, and their relations to American Youth. For Alex, narrative storytelling is a means to inspire audiences through diversity and providing new ways of thinking. Right now, Alex works with Artivists United through Public Allies Los Angeles, by editing, directing, and producing projects that promote social justice, equity, community building, and progressive politics. Alex is developing a new film, WANT + NEED, a story that will explore how the relationship between the media and advertising industries affects young black adults and their conquest to find meaning in their lives.

Found objects are the crystallization points of Malte Sänger's photography-based works. The human and geological time planes entangled in them are made visible by means of extensive research work, travel and self-built camera systems. The self made artist books resulting from the projects have received several awards. Malte Sänger holds a Diploma degree from the University of Art and Design of the State of Hesse, Germany in Film Directing, Philosophy & Aesthetics and Photography, is a Fellow of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), and received his MFA in Photo & Media and Integrated Media from CalArts in 2022.

Vinhay Keo, born in Cambodia and currently based in Los Angeles, is an interdisciplinary visual artist and researcher. He employs photography, installation, sculpture, performance, and writing as strategies to explore the persistent hauntings of violence. By reading intimately across archives, Keo examines the legacy of the Khmer Rouge Genocide, the Vietnam War, colonialism in Indochina, and queer erasure throughout history and its effects on contemporary diasporic lives.

Rosa Evangelina Beltrán is a Mexican-American poet, vocalist, and educator based in Los Angeles. Her work investigates the performative capabilities of voice, text, and movement, often activating language and energetic traces left behind by her ancestors, including her past selves. She holds MFA degrees in Voice Arts and Creative Writing from the California Institute of the Arts, and a BA in History and Literature from Harvard. Her studies have been supported by the Mercedes and Gabriel García Marquez Scholarship, the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, and the Michael C. Rockefeller Fellowship. Born in Mexico, Rosa grew up in Ontario, California and is a first generation college graduate in her family.

Julia Sáenz Lorduy is an educator, writer and textile artist from Bogotá, Colombia now living in Los Ángeles. She received an MFA in Creative Writing from CalArts in May 2022 and was selected a Post Graduate Teaching Fellow for the School of Critical Studies for the class she proposed, feminist text(ile) practices, which she taught in the fall, and a winter session class on Quilting. She was also the managing editor for the anthology of lust rubber which gathered thesis excerpts from the MFA graduating cohort as well as for PEZ (Proyecto Educativo Zarpar), a magazine gathering writings from Teach for Colombia 2019 cohort fellows in Bogotá. Julia’s academic interests are far-reaching, and she is invested in inter- and multi- disciplinary lenses to her teaching, writing, and art making. She completed her bachelor’s at Columbia University with a major in Sociology and a concentration in Mathematics. Since 2021, Julia has been part of a sewing circle that creates textile testimonies of state and gender violence in Bogotá, called Mujeres Haciendo Memoria.

Irene Gil-Ramon is a filmmaker and audiovisual artist originally from Barcelona. Irene has directed projects across fiction and non-fiction, including web documentaries and installations. Her work has been screened in venues such as Museo de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid), Saatchi Gallery (London) or REDCAT (Los Angeles). In 2018 she moved from Barcelona to Los Angeles to attend CalArts after being awarded one of the 'La Caixa' Fellowships.