This fall, UC San Diego will unveil Embodied Pacific, an exciting multi-sited exhibition in partnership with the Getty initiative PST ART: Art & Science Collide.

Embodied Pacific, a collaboration between UC San Diego’s Department of Visual Arts and Birch Aquarium, features artworks created by artists partnering with scientists from Scripps and UC San Diego labs.

Indigenous community leaders in environmental and ocean science, engineering, and design will also contribute to the project.

The exhibition spans multiple sites on the UC San Diego campus, including the Birch Aquarium at Scripps and other community sites (see locations below).

In a time of planetary crisis, the exhibition examines the intersection of oceanography and Indigenous knowledge and objects—such as Kumeyaay basket-making and full-sized tule reed boats—and imagines an intercultural approach to sustaining our oceans.

Reaching audiences across San Diego and La Jolla, Embodied Pacific helps our community imagine a collective intercultural role in sustaining our ocean body in a time of critical change.

Embodied Pacific exhibition locations include:

Birch Aquarium:

• Project Flip by Rachel Mayeri, Research Platform FLIP (Floating Instrument Platform)
• Air-Sea Boundaries: Waves by Memo Akten, Scripps Ocean-Atmosphere Research Simulator
• Passengers of Change by Danielle McHaskell, Joe Riley, and Audrey Snyder, Smith Lab at Scripps
• Unbleached by Scott McAvoy, Sandin, and Smith Labs at Scripps
• Mosaic Ocean by Judit Hersko, Jaffe Laboratory for Underwater Imaging
• Ha Kwaiyo by Stan Rodriguez, Kumeyaay Community College
• Sound and Shadows by Claudine Arendt, Sven Gastauer, and Ohman Lab
• Radical Aquarium by Hans Baumann, Birch Aquarium at Scripps

Kendall-Frost Marsh Reserve:

• Navigating the Pacific with works by Mario Borja and the Sakman Chamorro Group

The SME Visual Arts Gallery:

• Navigating the Pacific with works by Simon Penny, Mario Borja, the Sakman Chamorro Group, Jessica Ashook, Stanley Rodriguez, Lauryn Smith, Trish Stone, and Marianne (Mimi) George (September 27, 2024 to March 15, 2025)

Gallery QI:

• Three Lives with works by Amy Adler, Nicholas Miller, and Jeffrey Stuker featuring the 20th-century oceanographers Easter Allen Cupp, Anita Smith Hall, and June Patullo (September 27 to December 8, 2024)
• Extracting Ocean Histories with work by Louis Hock and Paola Zuñiga (January 12 to March 15, 2025)

UCSD Library Gallery

• Three Lives with works by Johnny Chatman, Kim Heard, and Lauryn Smith featuring the 20th-century oceanographers Easter Ellen Cupp, Anita Smith Hall, and June Pattullo (September 9 to December 8, 2024)

Kosay Kumeyaay Market:

• Drawing Water works in basketry, drawing, and immersive reality by Ana Gloria (Martha) Rodriguez, Gloria Crosthwaite, and Catherine Eng (September 27 to December 8, 2024)

Embodied Pacific is among more than 60 exhibitions and programs presented as part of PST ART. PST ART is a groundbreaking cultural collaboration. Every five years, PST ART unites hundreds of artists around a single, electrifying theme at more than 60 exhibition spaces.

Celebrating Cultural Collaboration and Artistic Discovery

While the theme is different each time, the heart of PST ART is always the distinctive cultural identity of Southern California and the universal hunger for artistic and intellectual discovery.

In a region famed for its films and theme parks, PST ART provides a different kind of gripping experience—and the most distinctively Southern Californian of all.

UC San Diego is hosting an additional PST ART installation at the Mandeville Gallery as part of the Helen and Newton Harrison: California Work exhibition, which opens on September 28, 2024.

See you there!

Embodied Pacific will open on September 26 at Gallery QI and the SME Visual Arts Gallery, on September 27 at Kosay Kumeyaay Market, and on October 4 at Birch Aquarium.

The project is led and curated by Lisa Cartwright, Nan Renner, and Megan Dickerson. World Design Capital 2024 is highlighting Embodied Pacific as an exemplary community program.

To learn more about UC San Diego and Birch Aquarium, visit here.

See you there, San Diego!