Dena Beard, executive director of The Lab since 2014, has led the organization through a rehabilitation of its facility and is inaugurating a new program of commissioned artistic projects with Ellen Fullman, Jacqueline Gordon, Dora García, and Brontez Purnell. Beard was formerly assistant curator at BAMPFA, where she organized exhibitions with D-L Alvarez, Lutz Bacher, Anna Halprin, Desirée Holman, Barry McGee, Silke Otto-Knapp, and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and worked on forty additional projects with artists such as Martha Colburn, Omer Fast, Jill Magid, Ahmet Ogut, Trevor Paglen, Emily Roysdon, Tomás Saraceno, and Tris Vonna-Michell.

Featuring surprise new performance by Brontez Purnell: Emotional/Content.

About California Countercultures
Thinking Through the Arts and Design at Berkeley: California Countercultures is a UC Berkeley course cotaught by Natasha Boas, independent curator and critic of contemporary art and theory, and Michael Cohen, associate teaching professor in the African American studies department. The Wednesday public lecture series is organized by Natasha Boas. California Countercultures is sponsored by UC Berkeley’s Big Ideas program and the Arts + Design Initiative, with additional support from Cal Performances and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.