Talks & Conversations
Ongoing
Artists, curators, scholars, and others share their insights on BAMPFA exhibitions, the arts, and other cultural topics.
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- Upcoming
Films - Past
Films - Past
Events
Upcoming Events
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Sunday, November 16, 1 PMFrom the Estate of Eli Leon: Textile Improvisations
A presentation of new work created from the Eli Leon fabric collection by acclaimed artists Mansur Nurullah, Jasmine Nyende, and rel robinson, who will share their artwork and take part in a conversation about connecting with this storied material.
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Thursday, December 4, 5 PMWeaving Histories: Lee ShinJa’s Art from the 1950s to the 2000s
In this illustrated lecture, Sunglim Kim, who specializes in Korean art from the premodern to contemporary periods, traces the artistic evolution of Lee ShinJa.
Presented in partnership with UC Berkeley's Center for Korean Studies
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Wednesday, December 10, 5:30 PMArtist’s Conversation with Zeinab Saleh
London-based artist Zeinab Saleh speaks with Senior Curator Anthony Graham about her new paintings debuting as part of MATRIX 289 / Zeinab Saleh: Signs of a softer world.
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Sunday, February 8, 12:30–3:30 PMSymposium / Multiple Offerings: New Directions in Research on Theresa Hak Kyung Cha
BAMPFA hosts a symposium that highlights new directions in research on Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, featuring contributions from graduate students and early career researchers and moderated by UC Berkeley faculty and scholars.
Past Events
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Saturday, October 25, 1:30–4:30 PMSymposium: Gathering by the Motheroot
Join us for an afternoon of conversations with contemporary quiltmakers, scholars, curators, and artist-activists reflecting on African American quiltmaking as a present practice and an inheritance to steward for the future.
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Sunday, October 12, 2 PMThe Choreography of Environments: How the Anna and Lawrence Halprin Home Transformed Contemporary Dance and Urban Design with Janice Ross
Janice Ross introduces her new book, The Choreography of Environments, which demonstrates how ordinary objects from a private residence can become lenses for viewing art innovation. The program will be followed by a book signing.
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Saturday, September 20, 1 PMArtists’ Conversation: Quilts as Legacy and Living Practice
Artists Diedrick Brackens, Basil Kincaid, and Adia Millett join Key Jo Lee to discuss how the materiality of quilts—pieced, patched, and passed down—becomes a metaphor for survival, resistance, and boundless Black creativity.
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Thursday, September 11, 6 PMArtists’ Conversation with Tyler Cross and Kyle Lypka, Vincent Fecteau, and Léonie Guyer
In a discussion moderated by BAMPFA Senior Curator Anthony Graham, four artists featured in the exhibition discuss ways their work variously represents, reshapes, and reimagines familiar objects.
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Thursday, September 11, 7 PMArtist’s Conversation: Andro Eradze
Georgian artist Andro Eradze talks with BAMPFA Chief Curator Margot Norton about his mesmerising film work featuring animals, plants, and other nonhuman subjects, which reveals the interconnectedness among all things.
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Sunday, July 27, 3–6 PMEARTH SEED: A People’s Journey of Radical Hospitality
Join us for a special screening of the People’s Kitchen Collective’s (PKC) documentary EARTH SEED: A People’s Journey of Radical Hospitality. The two-hour screening will be followed by a panel discussion with PKC cofounder, Black Studies Collaboratory Cohort Member, and most recent Museum of the African Diaspora Chef in Residence Jocelyn Jackson, along with another special guest from the film.
Free admission
Open Captioned
Copresented by BAMPFA, Black Studies Collaboratory at UC Berkeley, Museum of the African Diaspora, and People’s Kitchen Collective -
Saturday, June 14, 2 PMLijin Lecture: Yasufumi Nakamori on Martin Wong and Premodern Art of Asia
BAMPFA is pleased to announce Dr. Yasufumi Nakamori as BAMPFA’s 2025 endowed Lijin Lecturer. His presentation connects two important aspects of the museum’s collection--contemporary and pre-modern art from Asia—and promises to cast new light on the art of Martin Wong (1946-1999).
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Friday, May 16, 5:30 PMMFA Artists’ Talk
Hear from the 2025 graduates of UC Berkeley’s Master of Fine Arts program—Viviana Martinez Carlos, Priyanka D’Souza, Arianna Khmelniuk, Jasmine Nyende, bryant terry, and Zekarias Thompson—on the occasion of BAMPFA’s fifty-fifth annual MFA exhibition.
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Thursday, April 17, 6:30 PMArtists' Conversation: Disobedient Bodies
Concluding the series of thematically focused Making Their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection discussions, this program brings together Suzanne Jackson and Firelei Báez, two artists whose works are featured in the exhibition, in conversation with writer, curator, and UC Berkeley teaching professor Hilton Als. The group will discuss approaches to artmaking that defy conventional modes of representation, through innovations in portraiture and lively methods of abstraction.
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Wednesday, April 9, 5:30 PMConversation: The Afterlives of Art: Caring for the Ephemeral
Artist Estefania Puerta, conservator Michelle Barger, and scholar Jules Pelta Feldman join BAMPFA Chief Curator Margot Norton for a multifaceted in-gallery discussion of the issues and opportunities presented by art made under conditions of impermanence, as highlighted in the museum’s current collection exhibition, To Exalt the Ephemeral: The (Im)permanent Collection.
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Thursday, March 27, 6:30 PMCalifornia Live! Enthralled: What Explains Our Unshakeable Fascination with Cults?
Join California Magazine’s Pat Joseph in conversation with Poulomi Saha, who teaches the highly popular course Cults in Popular Culture and is currently working on a book entitled Enthralled, to discuss America’s long obsession with “communities and philosophies that offer total belief and total enthrallment—even and especially as we might claim that we would never ourselves join.”
Copresented by California Magazine and the Cal Alumni Association
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Saturday, March 15, 3:00 PMArtists’ Conversation: Crafting the Self
Artists Melissa Cody and Tau Lewis join curator Jenelle Porter to discuss the ways their works express identity, power, lineage, and the self through materials, making, portraiture, and abstraction.
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Saturday, January 25, 2:00 PMArtist's Conversation / Jamillah James, Barbara Kasten, and Gloria Sutton: Painting and Technology
Featuring artist Barbara Kasten whose work is included in Making Their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection, this discussion explores the innovative ways artists have transformed the language of painting as technologies evolve. Barbara Kasten will be joined in conversation by Jamillah James, Manilow Senior Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and Gloria Sutton, Associate professor of Contemporary Art History and New Media at Northeastern University and catalogue contributor for Making Their Mark.
This conversation will be followed by a tour of the exhibition at 3:30 PM.
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Saturday, January 18, 1:00 PMArtist’s Talk and Conversation: Tanya Aguiñiga and Anthony Graham
Join artist Tanya Aguiñiga and Senior Curator Anthony Graham for a conversation on Aguiñiga’s new Art Wall installation, her first solo presentation in the Bay Area.
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Saturday, January 18, 2:00 PMArtist’s Talk and Conversation: Amol K Patil and Victoria Sung
Join Amol K Patil and Phyllis C. Wattis Senior Curator Victoria Sung for a conversation on Patil’s newly commissioned body of work.
This event is cosponsored by BAMPFA, the Institute for South Asia Studies, and the South Asia Art Initiative at UC Berkeley.
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Sunday, January 12, 3:00 PMSocial Art: The Act of Drinking Beer with Friends Is the Highest Form of Art with Tom Marioni
Legendary Bay Area conceptual artist Tom Marioni, whose work is featured in To Exalt the Ephemeral, introduces his book Social Art, an updated consideration of his ongoing and best-known work, the performance installation The Act of Drinking Beer with Friends Is the Highest Form of Art.
Past Films
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