School of Critical Studies

Jungsub Eom (born in 1994, Incheon) is an artist who engages in various mediums, including installations, sculptures, drawings, and essays. He co-founded the art collective CALCIUM and managed an independent art space in Seoul. Jungsub earned his BFA in Sculpture from Hongik University in 2020 and his MFA in Art from the California Institute of the Arts in 2023. He presented a solo show at CALCIUM in 2021.

Zoe J Moon is an interdisciplinary multimedia Chicana artist and researcher born and raised in Hawthorne, California. Her practice is deeply rooted in femicide, folklore, intergenerational healing, and challenging conventional wisdom.  She uses her radical imagination to deconstruct one-sided narratives that speak to the complexities of comfortable complacency in society. As a whole, history, power structures, and identity will always inform Zoe’s practice. She revisits these themes as they apply to the social and political climate around her.

Zoe completed her bachelor’s as a Posse Scholar at Dickinson College majoring in Art & Art History and Political Science with honors. She received her MFA in Photography and Media from CalArts in 2023. She is the recipient of fellowships and scholarships from The Posse Foundation (2016-2020), the Hispanic Scholarship Fund (2021), and The Provost Research Fellowship (2022). The Bartman Fund (2022, 2023)

Wes Weisbaum is a Los Angeles based 818 filmmaker and poet; their work touches on the intersections of their identity as a transmasc Salvadoran-American in the San Fernando Valley. Wes holds a B.A in Art from the Claire Trevor School of the Arts, of the University of California Irvine and an MFA in photography and Media from the California Institute of the Arts. Their work has been supported by The Alpay Scholarship from the Palos Verde Art Center, The Dee Williams Memorial Grant and The Allan Sekula Social Documentary Fund.

Rendering home-movie Hi-8 to a contemporary cinematic state. The process is the statement, with collaborative hands from poem, band, to birth of what word and sound visually demand. Their films have screened at ArtShare L.A, California State University Long Beach School Of Art, Northwest Film Forum, Western Michigan University, Yiwei Gallery, and more recently at Irrational Exhibits #12: Body, Materiality and Systems at Tiger Strikes Asteroid, L.A.

Nikki Ochoa is an Ancient baby from Kudzu covered forests. She is a sculpturalist, poet, visual + performance artist, and musician. Her practice aims to create poetry that exists in the physical realm, and on nurturing community spaces outside of capital expectations. Liberation and enchantment for all. 

She loves babies and dirt. She would like to become a contortionist and build a flying machine. She likes to walk around for hours and just see how the light hits. 

Kenny Reveiz - Author of the award-winning MOPES: A Book of Poems in Three Acts, Kenneth Reveiz works critically and creatively at the intersection of empire studies, ethnic studies, and cinema studies, to advance racial and economic justice.

Shu L. Xu, a writer and scholar, received their B.A. in Comparative Literature from Reed College in 2020, and completed their M.A. in Aesthetics & Politics at CalArts in May, 2023. Their research focus is on the genealogy of Classical Chinese poetry from the early, formative period into the most flourishing phase of poetry in the early Medieval period, and the possibilities inherent in the interpretative contexts and ruptures which produced the insight that the past poses a problem for the present. Previously, Shu completed their master thesis “Crossroads: When In the Chronicles of Poetry” and edited the anthology “flesh of the concrete” which gathered critical essays and thesis excerpts from the MA Aesthetics and Politics cohort. They will be teaching undergraduate courses on the poetics and politics of ancient Queer literature under the auspices of the 2023-2024 Post-Graduate Teaching Fellowship in the School of Critical Studies from CalArts. Currently, Shu is working on a journal article on two thousand years of interpretative debates concerning the The Book of Odes, as well as contributing to a new project on the experience of love in the decline of Empire. 

Alex Ahr is a filmmaker and visual artist from Texas living in Los Angeles California. Their work involves narrative animation and manuscript making in a variety of experimental mediums. Their work tackles themes of social dysfunction, paralysis, and the black comedy of difficult lives.  Their research interests include pre-industrial bookmaking and illustration, and eastern European independent animation. They are concerned primarily with the creation of artworks that challenge the status quo of their times. They have an MFA in Experimental Animation from California Institute of the Arts and are a former Sundance Fellow.

Advik Beni is a South African born artist and filmmaker based in Los Angeles, California. He received his Bachelors at the University of Cape Town and then graduated from California Institute of the Arts with an MFA in Film Directing. Through the use of non-hierarchical, hybrid modes of filmmaking, he collectively creates imagined spaces for peoples on the fringes to express grief and trauma. His work aims to preserve a cultural tradition eclipsed by Western modes of storytelling. 

He is the founder of the sadarts foundation, a non-profit which aims—through the arts—to increase accessibility and raise awareness for mental health issues within marginalized South African communities. His work has shown at San Sebastián International Film Festival, Uppsala International Short Film Festival, Encounters Film Festival, Joburg Fringe Art, Parallel Vienna, Untitled Art Miami, and the Edinburgh International Film Festival amongst others. He also received the Sundance Ignite Fellowship, Points North Fellowship and is a finalist for The One Club for Creativity’s COLORFUL 2023

Nehal Vyas is a film and video artist from India, currently based in Los Angeles. Her work explores the idea of national identity through memory, personal history and inheritance. She is a graduate from California Institute of the Arts where she received her MFA in Film/Video. She is a recipient of the Flaherty Fellowship (2022), the Hollywood Foreign Press Association Scholarship and the Lillian Disney Scholarship. Her works have shown at the San Sebastian Film Festival, Camden International Film Festival, Indie Memphis Film Festival, REDCAT (Los Angeles), 2220 Arts + Archive (Los Angeles), Automata (Los Angeles), Analogica (Italy) and Mumbai International Film Festival (India). She is the co-founder of the Artists in Revolution Collective, which focuses on developing a nuanced understanding of socio-political conditions across the globe through screenings and discussions in collaboration with fellow artists and filmmakers.

Zhao Yanbin’s film and installation works focus on the interpretation of “distance” in the sense of temporality and spatiality, as well as the ruptures and relations it creates on the historical, political, cultural, and personal level. He received an MFA in Film from California Institute of the Arts.

Genevieve Fowler is an LA and Chicago based director whose multidisciplinary performance works act as a liminal space - weaving together memories of the past, present, and future - to discover ways in which our current reality is questioned and sanguine futures are dreamed on. This practice revolves around radically inclusive, community based work and socially minded critiques of the classics for a contemporary audience. She has worked with The Kennedy Center, REDCAT Theater, The Tank Center for Sonic Arts, The Center for New Performance, California Institute for the Arts, the Braid, The Amargosa Opera House, First Peoples Fund, The Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Lookingglass Theater, Chicago Dramatists, Big Bridge Consortium, Heritage Arts Company, The Special Olympics of Illinois, the senior citizen musical theater troupe Still Acting Up, among others. Genevieve is a company member of Collaboraction Theater Company and artistic associate with Medina Theater Collective.

As part of her work Genevieve holds the position of Program Associate with Community Partners, working on equity centered arts & culture funding programs. Genevieve holds an MFA in Directing from the CalArts School of Theater and a BA from Vassar College.

Amy Chiao is a multimedia artist, performer, designer, and director working in site-specific performance installation, character development, collage, video, and materials design. Based in Los Angeles, California, Chiao comes from a family of Cantonese musicians and composers, Opera singers, and mannequin manufacturers. Her work strives to uncover and dimensionalize the fictitious nature of society through dramaturgy, narratology, and speculative design strategies.

She holds a BFA in Textiles at the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA in Scene Design with a concentration in Integrated Media at the California Institute of the Arts. Her practice has been generated through a wide range of production spaces from community media stations, live theater, to product corporations including the cable access TV station Open Signal Portland Community Media, the clown cohort at Coho Theater, and Nike Inc. Her work has been shown at Human Resources (LA), The Elysian Theater, REDCAT Roy & Edna Disney Calarts Theater, the LA State Historic Park, Walt Disney Modular Theater Lobby, Killjoy Collective, and the RISD Museum.

Alex Barlas embarked on a transformative journey toward his artistic aspirations, earning an MFA in Acting from California Institute of the Arts in 2020. Alex has illuminated renowned venues, notably portraying the complex character Oswald Alving in "Ghost" at The Odyssey Theater. He captured audiences' hearts as Sunny, a visual artist grappling with self-doubt, in Edgar Arceneaux's "Boney Manilli,'' staged at the iconic Walt Disney Concert Hall's RedCat Theater. Most recently, Alex has delighted audiences with his performance in 'A Christmas Carol' at South Coast Repertory, showcasing his dedication to bringing stories to life. He is honored to be a Reef Residency recipient. He is excited to bring his one-man show 'Take Me Home Country  Road' to life.

Robert S. Kelley II, a Florida native is an improvisational dance performer and choreographer. His physical practice involves using Dance Improvisation as a tool to blend explicitly cognitive and implicitly cognitive movement to investigate the mind-body connection between emotions and how they are physically expressed through the body. He envisions his work being fruitful in avenues similar to Concert Dance and Performance Art to create experiences that are rooted in critical thinking, community building, body memory and ritual to cultivate effective dialogues between himself, allies, and enemies alike. What compels him to choreograph has always been building shapes with the body without regard towards aesthetic, creating dance that has its own balance of freedom and form to test the boundaries of the Amateur/Virtuosic spectrum. Also drawn to making content that relates to the nine primary emotions, he specifically focuses on fear, anger, trust, and love because he feels these states remind us of our fragility. He is an Ann & Weston Hicks Choreography Fellow from the School at Jacob’s Pillow. He has presented his choreography at Centre National de la Danse, California Institute of The Arts, Hillsborough Community College, Valencia College, Alvin Ailey Citigroup Theatre, St. Petersburg College, Dance Truck, Music Box and University of South Florida. Robert’s most recent collaboration was “Flow State (The Paradox of Lament),” that premiered at The Barnsdall Gallery Theatre. Currently, Robert has been commissioned by Robert Moses’ KIN to set work that will premiere in March 2024. Robert has an Associate’s degree in Dance Performance from Valencia College, a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a concentration in Modern Dance from the University of South Florida, and received his Master of Fine Arts in Choreography from the California Institute of the Arts.

Currently Based in Los Angeles, Taylor Donofrio creates delicate and intricate dance works for the screen, stage, and for public spaces. Donofrio’s approach to dance incorporates a psychoanalytic perspective, exploring one’s inner landscape and how it connects to our relationships and understanding of the world. Taylor examines new approaches to performance through artistic exchanges, her work informed by collaborators from various disciplines.

Taylor received her MFA in Choreography from California Institute of the Arts in 2022 and prior to then was based in NYC where she founded her own Contemporary Dance Company, Donofrio Dance Company, in 2010. Donofrio’s work has been presented at Triskelion Arts, CPR, FLICfest, WestFest, INSITU Site-Specific Dance Festival, 92Y, Gibney Dance, Jacob Burns Film Center, Red Rock Screen Dance Film Festival, ODC Theater, and Heidi Duckler’s Ebb & Flow. Taylor has also worked as rehearsal assistant for French Choreographer, Dimitri Chamblas, for his international work SLOW SHOW. Taylor has held choreographic residencies at the Irondale Theater, The Dragon’s Egg, and Governor’s Island and has been featured in Aligned Magazine and Dance Informa magazine.

Nick Ginsburg is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, sound artist, and teacher from the dense forests of southern Illinois. They are interested in using sound & its collaborations with other visual & sensory media to make apparent the oft-invisible material architectures of western empire, imperialism, and their roles in global environmental change & contemporary land-use. Unmasking & making lucid the material architectures & webs of power that produce modern technology and the democratic state drive their work-they strive to integrate these concerns within media such as concert music, installation, public spatial performance, and multi-disciplinary collaborations. Ginsburg has held residency & presented work at Colby College, University of Tennessee-Knoxville, Trentino Music Festival (IT), California Institute of the Arts, and Artspace304 (Carbondale, IL}. Trained primarily as a French hornist & environmental planner, Ginsburg holds BA and BM degrees from Oberlin College-Conservatory of Music, and is a recent MFA graduate of California Institute of the Arts.

Peruvian immigrant Anaís Azul (they/them) is a California based composer-performer, Fulbright Scholar, and teaching artist. Described as “stunningly honest and vulnerable,” their artistry engages with music as a tool for community building, cross-genre collaboration, and collective healing. Azul writes music that is in conversation with looped vocal harmonies, experimental sound design, and Latin American songwriting traditions. Their songs are multilingual (Spanish, English, and Quechua) and are about intergenerational trauma, queerness, systemic oppression, and finding inner peace in spite of chaos. Having produced 3 EPs, they are set to release debut LP “Simp’ashani” (braiding in Quechua) in May 2024. This album is a result of their research and study of the Peruvian Andes where their late maternal grandfather was from. “Simp’ashani” braids together languages (english, spanish, and quechua) and sounds (interviews, charango, and vocal loops) to tell stories of migration. Learn more at anaisazul.com

Zhihan Yang Choreographer, dancer and educator. Zhihan received her MFA from California Institute of the Arts and BFA from Beijing Dance Academy, and is currently based in Los Angeles. She is dedicated to researching the relationship between movement, installation and multi-media; the diverse embodiment of the body in the language of the camera and the reflection of identity between communities in different contexts are also the goals of her ongoing work. She has been active in theater, media, film and education in recent years, working with companies such as the Pacific Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Museum of Art, the Yaya Dance Academy, and the San Musae Cultural Center in the United States. Among her awards are Double Platinum Award and Overall First Placing in the Showstopper Dance Competition, Short Dance Film Finalists at the Vesuvius International Film Festival and Outstanding Official Selection at the 92Y Mobile Dance Film Festival. Her recent works include the environmental piece Metam.(2023)  with Heidi Duckler Dance, the orchestral trio choreography “THEA MUSGRAVE: Pierrot” (2023), the dance theater “Am I Susan” (2022), the physical theater “XXX” (2022), and the quintet “Gladiola” (2021), dance film “Question” (2022), “Rush” (2021) , “Refresh” (2021) and “Retrospect” (2021).