BELONGING
In spring 2023, we launched a new theme that will extend through fall 2023: Belonging. Recognizing belonging as crucial to the community's well-being, the organizers of the spring and fall 2023 Creative Citizens Series developed programs that highlight belonging as a practice that builds common ground and as an inherently embodied experience moving between comfort and discomfort.
Layla Namak (MArch 2025) installs stories of us at the CCA@CCA Belonging Symposium, March 2023. Photo by Nicholas Lea Bruno.
stories of us
stories of us is a collection of voice narratives that invites CCA faculty, staff, and students to reflect on experiences of belonging / othering. Through sharing stories, we hope to inspire learning and empathy among each other.
“After an individual’s basic needs are met, the door is opened to experience a sense of Belonging. Belonging cultivates feelings that the individual matters, they are valued, they feel safety, and it is conveyed that they are indispensable to the group. A sense of Belonging is relational, reciprocal, and dynamic.”
Tricia Brand, CCA’s Vice President of DEIB
FACULTY COORDINATOR
Julia Grinkrug
The 2023 CCA@CCA Faculty Coordinator is Julia Grinkrug, Adjunct II Professor, Architecture Program. Julia Grinkrug is an interdisciplinary educator, researcher and designer specializing in participatory practices. She is an Associate Director of Public Engagement in Urban Works Agency at California College of the Arts and teaches courses in architecture and urban design at CCA and UC Berkeley. Julia leads a participatory action research initiative called Oakland Allied Knowledge for Climate Action (OAK), and has been collaborating on various projects with local organizations, such as Black Liberation Walking Tour, San Pablo Area Revitalization Collaborative, Oakland Shoreline Leadership Academy and others.
STUDENT FELLOW
Layla Namak
Layla Namak (MArch 2025) received a bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2018, where she developed a passion for community-building through the power of design and entrepreneurship. This led her to pursue an interdisciplinary track titled “Design for Change.” She is passionate about restorative justice and the power of design to nurture our relationships with ourselves, our environments, and others. Her interest in activism stems from a commitment to fostering a more inclusive, just, and accessible world.
STUDENT FELLOW
Shreya Shankar
Shreya Shankar (MArch 2023) graduated from UC Berkeley with a B.S. in Environmental Policy & Urbanism in 2014 and has been active across city planning, art, and organizing in the Bay Area since 2011. Shreya has served as Executive Director of a climate action nonprofit and Project Manager of Oakland’s first resident-led neighborhood planning effort. Shreya is also the founder of Sacred Rivers Institute (SRI), a cultural strategy cooperative.
CAMPUS ACTIVATION
Symposium
The centerpiece of the spring 2023 Creative Citizens Series was the Belonging Symposium, organized by Julia Grinkrug in partnership with Shalini Agrawal, Associate Professor, Critical Ethnic Studies Program. The symposium aimed to foster a reciprocal and generative dialogue within the CCA community about creating spaces of safety and care for belonging. It encompassed a range of activities led by faculty and students, showcasing diverse creative practices and critical pedagogies focused on belonging. The symposium commenced with a conversation on belonging featuring Tricia Brand, VP of DEIB, and Christine Wong Yap. This was followed by a faculty panel and parallel workshops led by Faith Adiele, Genevieve Hyacinthe, Steve Jones, and Michael Washington. Interactive tabling sessions and curated installations by faculty and CCA@CCA Student Fellows were also available for attendees to explore.
CURRICULUM CONNECTION
Cassettes – Music for What We Have Lost
This podcast explores how music helps us psychologically survive in times of difficulty. In each podcast episode, a pair of students from the fall 2023 UDIST course, Dissonance - Music and Conflict, taught by Taro Hattori, invite friends to join them in dedicating songs to something or someone they have lost in their lives. They discuss personal experiences around music and share why they chose the tracks they dedicated. The series was broadcast on CCA Radio and was funded by a CCA@CCA Faculty Grant.
SPOTLIGHTED PROJECT
Recognitions / 认 • 知
a solo exhibition by Christine Wong Yap
The inaugural exhibition at CCA’s new Campus Gallery, Recognitions, marked the culmination of a collaborative social practice project between Christine Wong Yap and Edwin and Anita Lee Newcomer School—a public, one-year, language immersion elementary school in San Francisco’s Chinatown, serving Chinese-speaking recent immigrants. To explore the concept of Belonging with students at EALNS, Christine crafted prompts for K–5 students that were presented in a series of in-person, hands-on workshops at an after school program in 2021–2022. The prompts included: What does “home” mean to you? What’s something you miss about your country of origin? What’s something you love about living in California? For Recognitions, Christine translated the EALNS students’ ideas and creativity into three new artworks: three-dimensional plushy airplanes commemorating the students’ transpacific journeys, an oversized, hand-painted puzzle depicting a map of the students’ new homes in San Francisco, embellished portraits, reflecting their perspectives on life in China and California.
Photo by Nicholas Lea Bruno.
About Christine Wong Yap
2022 Creative Citizenship Fellow Christine Wong Yap (BFA Printmaking 1998, MFA Printmaking 2007) is a visual artist and social practitioner working in community engagement, drawing, printmaking, publishing, and public art to explore psychological well-being, belonging, and resilience. She has developed participatory research and public art projects in partnership with Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco, For Freedoms, the Library Foundation of Los Angeles, the Othering and Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley, Times Square Arts, and the Wellcome Trust, among others. She lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area, after a decade of living in New York City.
CAMPUS ACTIVATION
A Taste of Belonging: An Almost Night-Market
What does home taste like? What do our plates reveal about our family values and political histories? Which recipes provide cultural shelter and comfort during stressful times? How can food help facilitate deep conversations and create a sense of belonging on a global campus like CCA?
The members of LITPA 2000 Eating Words: The Literature + Film of Food invited the CCA community to Taste of Belonging: An Almost-Night Market, in the Blattner Multipurpose Room on December 5, 2023. The pop-up was modeled after popular night markets in Asia that bring communities together through food, crafts, music, and entertainment. Students and faculty took a break from finals to try international snacks, test their knowledge of food wars and colonial history, play food-based games, and connect with others through the universal language of food.
Organized by Faith Adiele, Chair & Professor, Writing and Literature Program / Professor, MFA Writing Program