WHERE DO
WE GO FROM
HERE?
Chris Treggiari helps a student screen print a “VOTE!” t-shirt, September 2024. Photo by Nicholas Lea Bruno.
The 2024–2025 CCA@CCA theme asks, "Where do we go from here?" During a time of high conflict in the world around us, how can we come together for discussion, reflection, and growth? How can the CCA Community enact positive change? CCA@CCA maintains an ongoing partnership with For Freedoms, an artist-led organization that centers art as a catalyst for creative civic engagement, discourse, and direct action. Founded in 2016 by CCA alumnus Hank Willis Thomas in collaboration with Eric Gottesman, Michelle Woo, and Wyatt Gallery, For Freedoms works closely with a variety of artists, organizations, and institutions to expand what participation in a democracy looks like and reshape conversations about politics.
This year’s CCA@CCA theme borrows the question Where do we go from here? from For Freedoms' new book. Published in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election, For Freedoms: Where Do We Go From Here? marks one of the largest public creative collaborations in American history: a series of over 550 artist billboards created between 2016 and 2023. These billboards emphasize the For Freedoms mission to model how art can urge communities into greater participation and action and foster nuanced discourse.
FACULTY COORDINATOR
Pia Zaragoza
Pia Zaragoza is a creative technologist, researcher, and educator exploring the current use cases and future possibilities of emerging technologies. She has held strategic roles at Fortune 500 companies working on inclusive design and accessibility research. Constantly tinkering and experimenting, her work is at the intersection of computer science, engineering, and the social sciences. Her past fellowships include Cinereach, IDEO, and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
STUDENT FELLOW
Elisabeth Cobb Hughes
Elisabeth Cobb Hughes (MFA Industrial Design 2025) received her bachelor’s degree in History from Brigham Young University in 2021. There, she studied how communities and individuals influence major systems during periods of change. Now, Elisabeth seeks to support grassroots political action through her interdisciplinary art and design practice. She is excited by collective creative power and its ability to affect change
CAMPUS ACTIVATION
CCA@CCA Symposium: Where do we go from here?
On March 6, CCA@CCA presented an evening of conversations, activations, and participatory workshops by CCA faculty that explored the 2025 CCA@CCA theme. The symposium began with a tea party presented by students in Melinda Luisa de Jesús’s GIRL CULTURE course, followed by a moderated panel featuring four CCA faculty members who serve as Creative Activists within their communities: Aaron Gach, Melinda Luisa de Jesús, Janette Kim, and Sara Dean.
The symposium also included an exhibition of large-scale installations by CCA students, including Abby Lawrence (Dual Degree: MA Visual and Critical Studies, MFA Fine Arts), Abed Darwazeh (BFA Interaction Design), Angela Zamora (BFA Animation), Chibuzor Darl-Uzu (MFA Design), Zedekiah Gonsalves Schild (Dual Degree: MA Visual and Critical Studies, MFA Fine Arts), and Yunfei Hua (MA Visual and Critical Studies), Grace Cao (BFA Graphic Design), and Xinling Wang (Alumna of MFA Design).
Alongside these installations were Weathering the Storm, a poster series by students in Isabel Samaras' Studio 2 Concept course; a community partnership presentation by students in Julia Grinkrug's Home Economics and Urban Cultures course; Mend, a community sewing project by Elisabeth Cobb Hughes; and Tools for Building Resiliency, an interactive installation organized by Sara Dean.
SPOTLIGHTED PROJECT
TAKE ACTION: A CCA@CCA EXHIBITION
TAKE ACTION was a group exhibition highlighting work by CCA faculty and alumni working as creative citizens in their communities. Timed to coincide with the U.S. Presidential Election, the inaugural exhibition in the new Deborah and Kenneth Novack Gallery celebrated six years of CCA’s Creative Citizens in Action initiative by highlighting artists who are providing a roadmap to creative activism by creating work about the issues they care about most:
Arleene Correa Valencia
Chris Johnson and Hank Willis Thomas
Maia Kobabe
Michele Pred
Michael Wertz
Neeraj Bhatia / THE OPEN WORKSHOP
Sarah Bird
Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik
TAKE ACTION was on view from October 19–November 16, 2024.
SPOTLIGHTED PROJECT
Drag and Democracy
2024–2025 CCA@CCA Faculty Coordinator Pia Zaragoza invited Honey Mahogany (Director of the San Francisco Office of Transgender Initiatives) and special guests Afrika America (Drag Out The Vote Ambassador) and Marcel Pardo Ariza (CCA Faculty) to kick off the Fall 2024 Deborah and Kenneth Novack Creative Citizens Series with a drag performance and panel discussion on October 23, 2024. Students were heavily involved in the planning and execution of this event: Kaeli Mcleod (Illustration 2025) designed the poster and decor for the event, Lilah Sperman (Illustration 2028) spoke to her peers about the importance of voting, and DJ Misty (aka Christine Ortiz, Photography 2026) entertained guests with sets.
