Check back for fall upcoming exhibitions soon.
Spring 2025 Programs
All programs are in person at the museum unless otherwise noted.
Download the spring brochure (PDF).
Covered: Spotlighting Faculty Authors in Letters and Science
Nicole Ranganath
Women and the South Asian Diaspora: Singing the Seven Seas
Tuesday, April 1
4:30–6 PM
Join us to explore the transoceanic history of South Asian women in California through their speech and songs across the 20th century. Ranganath examines gender, migration and music within the Sikh diaspora, highlighting women’s transformative roles in community-building. Drawing from six years of fieldwork, she showcases how Sikh women’s songs provide insight into migration experiences, anti-colonial struggles and spiritual traditions. The event will feature a discussion of her book Women and the Sikh Diaspora in California (Routledge, 2024) and Bibi Rasleen Kaur performing compositions by first-generation Punjabi women immigrants. Ranganath is an assistant professor and associate director of Middle East/South Asia Studies at UC Davis. She has published widely on the Punjabi and Sikh diaspora, including digital archives and historical analyses.
This program is organized by Middle East/South Asia Studies and Covered is a joint program of the Manetti Shrem Museum and UC Davis Library.
The California Studio Lecture
Marie Lorenz
Thursday, April 10
4:30–6 PM
Marie Lorenz’s work is rooted in the exploration and narrative of New York City’s waterfronts. Combining psycho-geographic exploration with highly crafted, material forms, Lorenz uses boats to create an uncertain space and bring about a heightened awareness of place. In 2005, she started her Tide and Current Taxi project, taking people around the New York Harbor in a boat built from salvaged materials, using the tide to guide her navigation. Lorenz is the spring quarter visiting professor in The California Studio: Manetti Shrem Artist Residencies.
Organized by The California Studio: Manetti Shrem Artist Residences in the Maria Manetti Shrem Art Studio Program. Co-sponsored by the Manetti Shrem Museum.
Thinking Food at the Intersections: Justice and Critical Food Studies
MÁT MÁT MẮT: A Performance with Chef and Artist Minh Phan
Saturday, April 19
3–4 PM
“Let me give you something, so you can take some of my pain away.”
– Minh Phan
Chef and artist Minh Phan invites audiences to a performance that takes place in her transcultural and transmedial garden. MÁT MÁT MẮT (Cool cool eyes), an immersive and collective commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, offers a multisensory encounter with trauma, memory and a taste of letting go. The performance will be followed by a Q&A with Dr. Elizabeth McQueen, a postdoctoral fellow at UC Davis, as part of the Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar, Thinking Food at the Intersections.
Organized by the UC Davis Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar, Thinking Food at the Intersections. Co-sponsored by the Manetti Shrem Museum.
Artist Talk: Tea and Peace with Amber Ginsburg and Aaron Hughes
Wednesday, April 23
3–5 PM
Artists Amber Ginsburg and Aaron Hughes will discuss the Tea Project, for which Ginsburg and Hughes created 779 porcelain cast Styrofoam teacups — one for each individual detained in the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp. These cups are inspired by the stories from detainees who carved flowers into Styrofoam cups to express themselves in the face of extreme oppression. Each porcelain teacup is engraved with the detainee’s name, country of citizenship and floral designs based on the national or native flowers from their country. The original Styrofoam cups, which were reportedly destroyed, have been preserved in these porcelain forms as symbols of survival and creative resistance.
Thirty-six of these porcelain tea cups are featured in the UC Davis Global Tea Institute’s Tea and Peace spring exhibition in the museum’s Collections Classroom. This exhibition explores the role that tea and material tea culture serves in creating space for conversations, building community and cultivating connections that transcend barriers of difference.
Tea and Peace is on view March 30–June 15 in the Collections Classroom.
Organized by Katharine Burnett and the Global Tea Institute with support from the Department
of Art and Art History. Co-sponsored by the Manetti Shrem Museum.
The California Studio Lecture
Byron Kim
Thursday, April 24
4:30–6 PM
Byron Kim creates paintings that use the languages of formal abstraction, observational paintings and conceptual art. His well-known Synecdoche series (1991–present) is a group portrait composed of hundreds of 10 x 8 inch panels, each painted to match the skin tone of a sitter. His numerous awards include, the National Endowment of the Arts Award, the Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Skowhegan Medal for Painting. A senior critic in painting/printmaking at the Yale School of Art, Kim is the spring quarter spotlight artist in The California Studio: Manetti Shrem Artist Residencies.
Organized by The California Studio: Manetti Shrem Artist Residences in the Maria Manetti Shrem Art Studio Program. Co-sponsored by the Manetti Shrem Museum.
Art of Athletes
Tuesday, April 29
6–7:30 PM
Art of Athletes celebrates the multifaceted talents and identities of Division I student athletes. In this 16th year of the show, you can explore the artwork of student athletes across 25 teams featuring different artistic mediums, meet many of the artists, and make art of your own.
Organized by UC Davis Athletics. Co-sponsored by the Manetti Shrem Museum.
Department of Art and Art History Visiting Artist Lecture Series
Rebeca Bollinger
Thursday, May 1
4:30–6 PM
NEW LOCATION: Wright Hall, Main Theatre
Rebeca Bollinger is an American artist known for her innovative work across various media, including sculpture, photography, video, drawing, installation, writing and sound. Born in Los Angeles, she earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1993. Bollinger first gained recognition with her video piece Alphabetically Sorted (1994), which utilized found text from an online forum, showcasing her early engagement with digital culture and the internet as a source material.
Bollinger has exhibited at prominent institutions such as San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the de Young Museum, and Orange County Museum of Art. In 2024, Bollinger was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, recognizing her significant contributions to contemporary art. She divides her time between Tucson and San Francisco, continuing to explore the intersections of technology, materiality and perception in her multifaceted practice.
Organized by the Maria Manetti Shrem Art Studio Program and supported by the College of Letters and Science at UC Davis. Co-sponsored by the Manetti Shrem Museum.
Davis Feminist Film Festival
Friday, May 9, 7–9:30 PM
Saturday, May 10, 2–4:30 PM
Celebrate the the 20th anniversary of the Davis Feminist Film Festival this year with UC Davis’ Women’s Resources and Research Center This two-day event showcases independent feminist film from around the globe — including narrative, documentary and experimental shorts — to raise consciousness about the intersecting dimensions of social inequity and to explore perspectives often missing from mainstream media.
Pair your feminist film festival experience with the work of 30 fiercely original and groundbreaking women artists and tour Through Their Eyes: Selections from the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Collection during intermission.
Organized by the Women’s Resources and Research Center. Co-sponsored by the Manetti Shrem Museum.
RSVP strongly encouraged via Eventbrite
Alberini Family Speaker Series in Design
Dylan Mulder
Weaving Heritage and High Tech: From Wearables to Movie Magic
Thursday, May 15
4:30–6 PM
This talk explores the intersection of cultural heritage, cutting-edge technology and sustainable design through the lens of Dylan Mulder’s award-winning work. Drawing from his Ngāti Maniapoto roots and global experiences, Mulder shares how he integrates Indigenous wisdom with modern innovations like generative AI and reactive diffusion.
An award-winning industrial designer, Mulder’s work encompasses product design, feature films and wearable technology. He draws on his Dutch and Māori heritage and connects people from all walks of life, regardless of cultural background, Indigenous roots, or socioeconomic status. He has worked with Weta Workshop, Cirque Du Soleil, Netflix, Air New Zealand and Soul Machines Ltd., and has created iconic costume pieces for clients such as Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry and the Right Honourable Dame Jacinda Ardern, former New Zealand prime minister.
Organized by the Department of Design. Co-sponsored by the Manetti Shrem Museum. The Alberini Family Speaker Series is supported through an endowment by the Carlos and Andrea Alberini Family Foundation. It brings renowned innovators and thinkers in design to campus and in virtual formats to inspire students and encourage community engagement and learning.
Art Jam
Thursday, May 22
6–9 PM
Join us for a sweet combination of free food and art, featuring a mix of creative experiences from UC Davis student groups.
This spring, Davis Data Driven Change, a club that aims to create change through interdisciplinary projects, presents an interactive exhibition celebrating culture and experiences in the LBGTQIA+ community in Davis and beyond.
Art Jam is an experimental, semi-improvised gathering of people making things for fun. Occasionally, the cast of collaborators grows after this is printed. Follow @manettishrem on Instagram to stay up to date!
Imagining and Enacting Just Food Futures
Friday, May 30, and Saturday, May 31
9 AM–6 PM
Manetti Shrem Museum (Friday)
Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science (Saturday)
The concluding colloquium for Thinking Food seeks to critically engage visions of the future of food being produced in the agri-food tech sector and explore more ecologically sustainable justice-centered visions for the future of food in communities, scholarship, art, activism and through the senses. Throughout this immersive two-day experience, participants will engage in a food performance by artist and Black Food Futurist Nia Lee; participate in workshops with artists, scholars, makers and food scientists; and learn from provocative thinkers and doers including Distinguished Professor Emerita
of Community Studies Julie Guthman (UC Santa Cruz) and Carlton Turner, co-founder of the Mississippi Center for Cultural Production (Sipp Culture).
Co-sponsored by the Manetti Shrem Museum, the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life, and the Darrell Corti Endowed Professor in Food, Wine and Culture.