Stay connected with livestreaming and recorded events, from conversations with artists to dance performances and more.
Read full descriptionCarmine Cella shares his compositions and musical instrument intonations that produce novel sounds, music, and spatial experiences.
Available to the general public as livestream only. UC Berkeley students may attend in person with valid Cal One ID.
The poet and new media artist Alex Saum-Pascual shares her experiences using common tools in unconventional ways toward a new poetic practice.
Available to the general public as livestream only. UC Berkeley students may attend in person with valid Cal One ID.
Bay Area dance companies Kinetech Arts and Smith/Wymore Disappearing Acts discuss their experience working at the intersection of dance and technology.
Join two socially minded visual artists as they continue their examination of public art commissions, artwork removal, and the impact of such activities on local communities.
This event has been canceled due to unforeseen circumstances. We apologize for any inconveniences this may have caused.
Join artist Elisa Giardina-Papa as she discusses the creative path she developed to move her ideas from an impossible present to a possible future.
Available as livestream only.
Costume and fashion designer Asa Benally explores the process of designing an Indigenized space within the American theater.
Marti Hearst discusses the creative side of computer science, sharing examples from her research lab.
Available to the general public as livestream only. UC Berkeley students may attend in person with valid Cal One ID.
Courtney Desiree Morris, Jacqueline Francis, and Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle explore the labor of Black feminist artists in creating beyond the constraints of heteronormative white supremacy.
Through sharing her experiences creating literary works, author Aya de Leon discusses why new times demand new narratives and new heroes.
Available to the general public as livestream only. UC Berkeley students may attend in person with valid Cal One ID.
The multimedia artist Shimon Attie discusses his work addressing important sociopolitical issues of our time, including Night Watch, on view on BAMPFA's Outdoor Screen.
The author and programmer Vikram Chandra discusses how new writing tools such as artificial intelligence can inform creative work.
Available to the general public as livestream only. UC Berkeley students may attend in person with valid Cal One ID.
Sebastián Calfuqueo and Natalia Brizuela explore the differences between the Indigenous world and Western culture through their works.
This event will be in Spanish with English interpretation available through the Zoom interpretation feature.
Inspired by the volumes and lines in Kay Sekimachi’s art, use maps of the Bay Area to make connections between two-dimensional and three-dimensional forms with artist Melissa Sarris.
For ages 6–12 with accompanying adult(s)
Would you make a deal with a magical tiger? This uplifting story brings Korean folklore to life as a girl goes on a quest to unlock the power of stories and save her grandmother.
Recommended for ages 8 and up
Join artist Stephanie Syjuco for an overview of her work and her processes for developing creative strategies for questioning the world and exploring new alternatives.
Available to the general public as livestream only. UC Berkeley students may attend in person with valid Cal One ID.
Pablo Gonzalez explores what it means to produce public art in an era of permanent protest through his collaborative project documenting murals in downtown Oakland.
Available to the general public as livestream only. UC Berkeley students may attend in person with valid Cal One ID.
Join Abigail De Kosnik as she discusses how new media can create the archives that form a foundation for collective action and social innovation.
Available to the general public as livestream only. UC Berkeley students may attend in person with valid Cal One ID.
UC Berkeley professors Judith Butler and Mel Y. Chen discuss shifting challenges for women and racialized queer, trans, and disabled communities; queer and crip time; differing valuations of productivity; and the transformations of regimes and cultures of care in the pandemic.
Join Lisa Wymore to discover movement as a fundamental condition of human existence.
Available to the general public as livestream only. UC Berkeley students may attend in person with valid Cal One ID.
Reihana Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Tūteauru and Ngati Hine creates through a pioneering practice combining photography, video, and installation.
Finding a time capsule is like discovering a message from the past. What kind of message would you like to leave for others to find?
For ages 6–12 with accompanying adult(s)
Omar, known for his mischievous sense of humor, encounters anti-Muslim bigotry when his family moves to a new town and school. Read aloud with other kids to see how Omar’s huge imagination helps him respond to these challenges with his spirit and humor intact.
Recommended for ages 8 and up
Professor of Architecture Ron Rael discusses how new tools can change our creativity and the design methods that change how we live and who we are.
Available to the general public as livestream only. UC Berkeley students may attend in person with valid Cal One ID.
Join the first installment in the Arts + Design Thursdays fall event series on creativity across disciplines with a talk about what it means to invent a new material.
Available to the general public as livestream only. UC Berkeley students may attend in person with valid Cal One ID.
Translate an interior scene or outside view into a watercolor at this online “painting date”
with Chicago-based artist Leslie Baum, a shared art-making experience for ages 10 and up.
Period instrumentalists of the Contra Costa Trio reflect on the exhibition The Enduring Mark: Six Centuries of Drawing from the Gray Collection in a concert recorded at BAMPFA.
Programmed by William Skeen
In the spirit of the BAMPFA Art Lab, let’s hang out and make some art together. Guest artist Seth Bogart joins us from his LA studio to share work and chat about recent inspirations.
The Korean musical group Ensemble PHASE performs excerpts from composer Edward Schocker’s new work Self_Less, along with traditional Korean music
Programmed by Thingamajigs
An eleven-hour marathon experience of word and sound with poet Stephen Ratcliffe and the Thingamajigs Performance Group, followed by a live Q&A.
Programmed by Thingamajigs
Hear from members of local ensembles who developed ways to make music together during the pandemic.
Programmed by Thingamajigs
Local jazz harp legend Destiny Muhammad presents her new work Rosie Lee Tompkins: Guided by Something More Powerful, an improvised sonic suite livestreamed from the gallery of Tompkins’s artwork.
Artists Sudhu Tewari and Theresa Wong discuss real estate redlining and equity and share from their sonic portfolios
Programmed by Thingamajigs
Recent alumni of the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts program for young artists premiere their work-in-progress video opera, developed with the mentorship of writer Beth Lisick and composer Lisa Mezzacappa.
We present the online premiere of two episodes of The Electronic Lover, a new “audio opera” by Bay Area composer Lisa Mezzacappa and New York writer Beth Lisick. The cast and creators join us for a conversation.
Programmed by Sean Carson
Artist Sam Vernon offers a talk on the occasion of a new print project made in collaboration with the BAMPFA Film Library. Register for this event and receive a print piece in the mail!
Hear the 2021 graduates of UC Berkeley’s Master of Fine Arts program talk about their work on view at BAMPFA.
Art historian Julia F. Andrews presents a lecture reflecting on the rise of women as artists and as female subjects for art, in the context of the evolving status of women in twentieth-century China.
Artists Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo, Olaitan Callender-Scott, Angela Hennessy, and Ramekon O’Arwisters share new work created with fabrics from the collection of the late Eli Leon, an Oakland-based collector, scholar, and champion of African American quiltmakers.
Hear the 2020 graduates of UC Berkeley’s Master of Fine Arts program talk about their work on view at BAMPFA.
In conjunction with BAMPFA’s presentation of Kathleen Collins’s Losing Ground, watch a live conversation and Q&A about Collins’s work with Nina Collins, Eisa Davis, Geetha Ramanathan, Dawn L. Troupe, and John Wilkins.
Artists Indira Allegra and Josh Faught talk with Jenelle Porter, guest curator of Kay Sekimachi: Geometries, about how Sekimachi has impacted their approaches to working with fiber and about the history of teaching and learning weaving in the Bay Area.
Choreographer Kathryn Roszak presents a second program of recent ballet works by local women choreographers, featuring Smuin Ballet, Berkeley Ballet Theater, Diablo Ballet, and Danse Lumière.
Programmed by Kathryn Roszak
Join artist and educator Sara Knight to explore storytelling through textile collage in this workshop for all ages and skill levels.
Programmed by Alayna Tinney
In conjunction with BAMPFA’s presentation of Tell Them We Were Here, watch a live conversation with the film’s directors, Griff and Keelan Williams; artist Nigel Poor; and BAMPFA Director Julie Rodrigues Widholm.
In the evolving context of “public space” in response to COVID-19, artist Zeph Fishlyn takes you on a live journey through the landscapes of your neighborhood, exploring notions of habit and perception. Begin at your own front door and join a Zoom call via cellphone.
In the spirit of the BAMPFA Art Lab, let’s hang out and make some art together. Guest artist Nat Russell joins us from his studio to share work and chat about recent inspirations.
Black Life co-curator Ryanaustin Dennis interviews mixed-media artist Adrian Octavius Walker at Pt. 2 Gallery in Downtown Oakland a day before the opening of the Represented Group Exhibition, where Walker will be exhibiting new print work.
Choreographer Kathryn Roszak presents recent ballet works by local women choreographers, featuring Smuin Ballet, Berkeley Ballet Theater, Diablo Ballet, and Danse Lumière.
Discover the innovative practices of three artists who have turned to textiles—incorporating or referring to them in their work—in this discussion moderated by BAMPFA Director Julie Rodrigues Widholm, presented in conjunction with Rosie Lee Tompkins: A Retrospective.
Three celebrated members of the African American Quilt Guild of Oakland—Frances Porter, Teri Green, and LaQuita Tummings—host a studio visit, sharing their quilt journeys and displaying some of their fabulous creations.
Berkeley’s own SPELLLING weaves rich sonic textures into dramatic compositions that are equal parts dream-state ritual and earthy funk, showing off her expressive vocal styles.
Join Clair Farley, director of the San Francisco Office of Transgender Initiatives, and Jenna Rapues, program director of Gender Health SF at the San Francisco Department of Public Health, to hear their perspectives in a conversation moderated by writer and clinical social worker Mere Abrams.
Two leading African American quilt artists explore Rosie Lee Tompkins’s work and its resonance with their own in a live conversation moderated by Elaine Yau, cocurator of BAMPFA’s Tompkins retrospective.
Learn about the remarkable palette potential of plant-based dye in this workshop with textile artists Kristine Vejar and Adrienne Rodriguez, authors of the new book Journeys in Natural Dyeing: Techniques for Creating Color at Home.
Do you miss the experience of making art in a collaborative, companionable space? In the spirit of BAMPFA’s Art Lab, join facilitator Alayna Boots Tinney for a free-form, all-ages drop-in art session, using any materials and techniques you choose.
Acclaimed recording artist/musician PC Muñoz and a panel of peers take a deep dive into how artists can create and thrive in a post-2020 world.
Programmed by Sean Carson
Join this intergenerational workshop and find out how undomesticated cloth can be! We’ll look at fabric’s history as a radical tool for communication and make back patches and flags that reflect ourselves, our communities, and our values.
Programmed by Alayna Tinney
Post:Ballet presents the premiere of La Folia, a ballet duet, along with other works.
Programmed by Sean Carson
Join New York Times art critic Roberta Smith and BAMPFA Director Emeritus Lawrence Rinder for a lively and searching conversation about the art of Rosie Lee Tompkins.
Powerhouse vocalist and songwriter Destani Wolf mixes live performance and multimedia in this special event.
Programmed by Sean Carson
Artist Michele Pred presents a feminist digital art parade that combines recordings of two parades performed in New York and Oakland with live music, guest speakers, sing-alongs, and more.
A recorded conversation between several contributors to MATRIX 277, which explores and honors the rich legacy of the San Francisco Art Institute on the occasion of its 150th anniversary.
Meet multidisciplinary artist Rob Moss Wilson on Zoom to explore drawing techniques for feeling free, getting loose, and having fun. All ages welcome!
A new dance work from inkBoat followed by a live interview and participatory exercise.
Bassist Lisa Mezzacappa and guitarist John Finkbeiner perform from New, Improved Recording in Oakland, California.
Cellist Isaac Pastor-Chermak and pianist Alison Lee team up for an exclusive at-home performance of a Beethoven sonata, in celebration of his 250th birthday in December 2020.
Prodigious percussionist Kevin Carnes, along with friends and family, created this video, a meditation on what pandemic isolation means in musical and social terms.
Violist Charlton Lee and cellist Kathryn Bates of Del Sol Quartet perform from home, including two pieces composed during shelter-in-place.
Theresa Wong and Ellen Fullman reveal their music recording process while sheltering in place at home.
Husband-and-wife duo Adam Theis and Shaina Evoniuk of Jazz Mafia perform from home.
BAMPFA Student Committee presents BAMFest 2021, a virtual take on their annual music and arts festival.
A BAMPFA Student Committee event.
Delphine Sims, a PhD candidate in UC Berkeley’s History of Art Department, reflects on local photographer James Oliver Mitchell’s multivalent portrait of Beat-era poet Diane di Prima.
Black Life host Ryanaustin Dennis speaks speaks with writer and thinker Akande X, whose work explores the intersection of blackness, comedy, the Internet, and politics.
BAMPFA Student Committee Co-chair Saffron Sener looks at Hans Hofmann’s painting And out of the Caves the Night Threw a Handful of Pale Tumbling Pigeons in the Light through the lens of its title, a line from Rainer Maria Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus.
Black Life host Ryanaustin Dennis speaks with Oakland-based musician, nightlife organizer, producer, and DJ MahaWam.
BAMPFA Curatorial Assistant Claire Frost discusses one of Eva Hesse’s intriguing Test Pieces in this recorded talk.
Claire Ittner, a doctoral candidate in UC Berkeley's History of Art Department, explores Romare Bearden's collage Berkeley: A City and Its People.
Tongo Eisen-Martin reads “I Do Not Know the Spelling of Money” and “The Chicago Prairie Fire.”
Raina León reads “For Aurélia on the 16th day of self-isolation, March 28, 2020.”
Maw Shein Win reads “Quiver, fern,” “Stranger,” “The Parlors,” and “The Soft Part of the Brain.”
Sunnylyn Thibodeaux reads “Notes from the Fire Escape.”