On a sunny Saturday in March, dozens of onlookers watched Jasmine Nyende charge, pull, twist, and duck under ropes held by six other performers. Nearby, portable speakers blared punk rock. Nyende’s performance — titled “Sankofa Moshpit” — was a joyful memorial to her late friend, Láwû. It was also one of the featured events during UC Berkeley’s MFA Open Studios.
Students pursuing their Master of Fine Arts (or MFA) degree in the Department of Art Practice get their own studio space at the Richmond Field Station, located six miles northwest of campus. The property consists of 170 acres of marshes, fields, warehouses, and workshops. On a random visit, you might catch Berkeley students designing robots, building concrete canoes, taking environmental samples, or racing formula cars. You might also cross paths with skunks, foxes, and snakes.
Despite the peaceful surroundings, there’s an energy in the air. People are busy improvising and creating wonders — not unlike Nyende during her performance.
This year, seven MFA students hosted the public in their studios. Unfortunately, a flu outbreak knocked several second-year MFA artists out of commission. Still, the remaining artists seemed pleased to be there. Though the semester’s end wasn’t for two more months, the occasion had a celebratory spirit amplified by the first-year MFA students’ recently concluded “Revolt Against the Sun” exhibition at the Worth Ryder Art Gallery on campus.
The Department of Art Practice treats the MFA Open Studios as a community event. Undergraduate students direct traffic and cook on a grill. Berkeley staff, students, and faculty intermingle.
MFA student Eleni Berg played on this neighborly dynamic with a sculpting workshop where visitors made seed bombs: clay filled with native seeds.
“I was thinking about how I could incorporate more community into my work and give everyone an opportunity to work with clay,” said Berg.
Visitors packed into Berg’s room to mold terracotta sculptures as she connected their activity to the natural world — a common theme in her art. Berg is currently working on a 3D paper model of a Victorian house that she will dye with eucalyptus and sourgrass, a commentary on “how invasive things can actually be very beautiful.”
Clay sculptures greet visitors to Eleni Berg's seed bomb workshop
Giancarlos "GG" Campos flips through a journal filled with concept art
Berg shares a building with four other students: Kristiana 莊礼恩 Chan, Swaleha Masude, bryant terry, and Zekarias Thompson. Though they all keep different schedules, Berg enjoys stopping by her neighbors’ spaces to check out what they are doing.
Berkeley’s MFA program is modest in size, with just 12 students. Private art schools typically churn out many more graduates. By contrast, Berkeley individually selects its students with great intentionality, striving to stimulate artistic cross-pollination. The selection process is painstaking and competitive, with the MFA program accepting just four percent of its applicants. As a result, the small cohort receives close guidance from faculty in their field.
This personal attention is what attracted Zuhoor Al Sayegh. Al Sayegh is currently on leave from her job as an art curator in the United Arab Emirates. She appreciates the calm near-solitude that the Richmond Field Station offers.
“The UAE is so energetic and bustling in its art scene,” said Al Sayegh. “You're always making work for shows or applying to awards. I needed to be somewhere where I can just make and not think about anything other than making.”
Al Sayegh’s current project focuses on the date palm, an important crop and cultural symbol in her home country. Al Sayegh explores the themes of shape, texture, color, and history through her ceramic sculptures and extensive scholarly research. While many assume art students focus solely on honing their technique, many of Berkeley’s MFA students also dive deep into relevant literature and cultural artifacts.
Berkeley’s MFA students’ access to the resources of a world-class research institution elevates the program’s strength. Over the course of her four semesters, Al Sayegh will take classes in comparative literature, Middle Eastern studies, and Arabic literature to enrich her art with historical context. She plans on producing an artist book containing the sketches, ecological facts, oral histories, and socioeconomic research she has collected on the date palm.
Jacquard fabric art displayed by Swaleha Masude during the MFA Open Studios
Clockwise from top-left: Zuhoor Al Sayegh, Giancarlos "GG" Campos, Swaleha Masude, and Héctor Muñoz-Guzmán.
Berkeley’s MFA students’ access to the resources of a world-class research institution elevates the program’s strength. Over the course of her four semesters, Al Sayegh will take classes in comparative literature, Middle Eastern studies, and Arabic literature to enrich her art with historical context. She plans on producing an artist book containing the sketches, ecological facts, oral histories, and socioeconomic research she has collected on the date palm.
Like Al Sayegh, Arianna Khmelniuk blends art with cultural research. Her corner of Building 161 contains hundreds of bottles containing aromatic ingredients needed to create her signature scent design, which has been featured in nightclubs and a recent San Francisco Chronicle article. Though Khmelniuk couldn’t attend the open studio event, her undergraduate research assistant, Eshani Jha, was available to present their investigation into the cinematic representation of smell and its role in social reproduction.
Jha isn’t an art practice student — she is double majoring in electrical engineering and computer science — but she was drawn to Khmelniuk’s research through a Berkeley Center for New Media undergraduate research fellowship. Khmelniuk’s preliminary findings indicate that films directed and written by men are significantly more likely to depict smell judgmentally than those written by women. The team, which also includes Fizzah Kayani, is now focused on preparing the database for public release at the MFA thesis exhibition, which opens on May 14 at BAMPFA.
Khmelniuk’s art is more of an experience. In fact, most of Berkeley’s MFA students work across multiple mediums and engage multiple senses. For her “Time Decay” installation, Khmelniuk collaborated with a Ukrainian perfumer, soldier, DJ, and spatial designer to create a smellscape evoking a sensation of dizziness. This feeling had preoccupied Khmelniuk since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The sounds and animations immersed visitors in the mental experience of soldiers in trench warfare.
The MFA students appreciate their studios. For many, it’s the first time they’ve had an established workspace with lots of light where they can try things out and make a mess.
“Before, I was working in my apartment, so I wasn't able to get paint on the floor,” said Héctor Muñoz-Guzmán. “It was a very limited space. It is amazing to have a space that's dedicated to work. I come here with a purpose.”
That doesn’t mean there aren’t issues. The area is far from campus. It can feel isolated, especially at night. It’s not difficult to find some rusty equipment or fraying canvas structure that is overdue for a replacement.
Al Sayegh and Berg described some difficulties in working with paint and clay. Some buildings don’t have sinks, so artists lug buckets back and forth. There is no kiln, so larger ceramic pieces must be created and fired on campus. Transportation is difficult: there are no public transit options and many students don't own vehicles that are large enough to carry sensitive pieces of art.
The Department of Art Practice wants to bring the MFA studios back to campus, but it would need to find and fund 10,000 square feet of space. If the department is successful, MFA students will be closer to libraries, sculpture shops, ceramic shops, printmaking studios, digital fabrication labs, and other production facilities, eliminating their former commute. It would also bring them closer to their faculty mentors and the undergraduates they train.
A few days before the MFA Open Studios, the Division of Arts & Humanities announced its vision for an “Arts Constellation” at UC Berkeley. The interdisciplinary approach centers around three goals: student access and support, faculty recruitment and retention, and state-of-the-art facilities and equipment. The effort arrives amid a dedicated push to modernize the university’s creative spaces, from the new Helen and Thomas Wu Performance Hall to the refurbished Bancroft Dance Studio.
A premier university must maintain first-rate infrastructure for its artists. The Arts Constellation would ensure that Berkeley continues to attract the best and brightest from around the world.
“Artists show us the worlds we can't yet see, won't see, or could someday see,” said Professor Anne Walsh, who co-directs the MFA program alongside Associate Professor Asma Kazmi. “They are crucial contributors to social life, our understanding of ourselves, and the times we live in. We want to honor their commitment with our own. They deserve their production facilities and studios to match their curiosity, their skills and talents.”
