Emma Thorne-Christy, this year’s lone candidate for a Master of Fine Arts in design, is going with a pop-up exhibition to show her work, starting this Thursday (May 15).

Eight M.F.A. candidates in studio art will show their work in the Nelson Gallery, May 31-June 21. An opening reception is scheduled from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Friday, June 6.

First-year M.F.A. students are showing their work in an exhibition titled Dumpstir Dive, which opened last week at the Pence Gallery in downtown Davis.

Filed Away: the undocumented experience — Thorne-Christy invites people to follow her on Twitter or Facebook to learn the exhibition’s whereabouts on any given day: twitter.com/FiledAwayUCD or facebook.com/FiledAwayUCD.

The exhibition will rotate among the North Quad, Silo and LGBTQIA Resource Center (in the Student Community Center).

In addition, she has organized a community conversation, 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, May 21, as part of her exhibition. The conversation will be held in Meeting Room D, Student Community Center, with snacks provided.

Thorne-Christy explained the genesis of her theme: “While the debate over comprehensive immigration reform is something we hear about in the news, the effects of current laws regarding undocumented immigrants are being lived by students in the UC Davis community.

“Undocumented students, DREAMers, AB540 and DACAmented students, and friends and family of undocumented immigrants, face a variety of challenges emotionally, politically, socially and financially in their daily lives as a result of current immigration policy.”

To illustrate this, she said, “I asked students to loan me one object that symbolizes their experience as an undocumented person or family member of an undocumented person.”

She said the pop-up exhibition will be on the North Quad or at the Silo from apoprximately noon to 2 p.m. on weekdays, May 14 to 23, then at the LGBTQIA Resource Center until June 5, when the center is open: 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Thursday and 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday.

for future reference — The title is "a cheeky appropriation of everyday, bureaucratic language, and a phrase that aptly conjures the artists’ investment in the material present and processes that invite chance and change.”

Though they can be classified as painters, sculptors and ceramicists, or installation, performance and video artists, all eight artists produce work that defies the boundaries of these categories. See images here.

Joyce Nojima’s installations and Jamie Dunn’s performances have distinct ties to drawing, skin and surface effects, while Brett Davis’ paintings are conceived with a visceral approach to psychically charged spaces. Alyssa Lempesis and Rachel Gelenius embrace a vast range of new and often unconventional materials, finding ways to build up and break down the sculptural medium.

Daniel Harano’s ceramic sculptures are intensely systematic, but also respond to the artist’s fluid process and the laws of nature. Jacob Greenlund’s video pieces cannily infuse popular media tropes with stream of consciousness elements and perspectives from the independent hip-hop scene.

Jeff King likewise embodies this experimental spirit: His work entails a system of constantly shifting production and wide-ranging stylistic output.

As with all things tagged “for future reference,” the artists’ collective works are both important records of the here and now, and indications of how the present will shape the future of the field. 

An accompanying exhibition catalog will include images of the artists’ work, their own writings and an introduction by Darrin Martin, associate professor. It will also feature a series of companion essays by Masters of Arts students in art history, in a new collaboration between the departments of Art Studio and Art History.

Dumpstir Dive — A first-year M.F.A. art show, comprising fresh new work in photography, painting, sculpture and printmaking by seven students: James Angello, Nuno Correia, Matt Debbault, Matt Gilbert, Wesley Miller, Lauren Rayburn and Jonathan Sprague. The exhibition runs through June 24 at the Pence Gallery, 212 D St., Davis.

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