CAC / UAG / ROOM Galleries

Opening Thursday, June 4, 6 to 8pm! HIT LIKE A TRAIN, the 2026 Undergraduate Honors Thesis Exhibition, features thesis presentations by nine students from the Art Honors cohort in the University Art Gallery and Room Gallery. Organized by faculty Amanda Ross-Ho, the show is on view until Saturday, June 13.

Artists:
Isabella Anderson .no.its.bella_
Mae Bradley
Yujeong Cho
Jebediah Dunn
Jered Frigillana
Kaia King-Hall
Rey Mar Negrete
William Pedroza
Junhao Zeng

In conjunction with the exhibition, check out additional parallel programs.

Leading up to the opening, Jered Frigillana presents T’HEMATHEATRE, a video installation occupying the 3rd floor west hallway of the Arts, Culture, and Technology Building (ACT). The installation features a collectively curated lineup of films running from June 1st to June 5th. The screening schedule and further details can be found at http://jeredfrigillana.com/THEMATHEATRE.

Coinciding with the opening on June 4th, Junhao Zeng will present a performance, ‘The Body Is Not Mine’, at 7pm in the University Art Gallery.

MFA Thesis Exhibitions, Part II on view till this Saturday, May 23!

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1- SUTURE by David Ditman, Contemporary Arts Center Gallery

2- The Tone That Calls The Song by Teresa Ho, University Art Gallery

3- Resuscitating Relics by Cecil Yuzhe Zhang, Room Gallery

Photos by Yubo D**g /

Gallery Hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 12 - 6 pm

On view through this Saturday, May 2: 2026 MFA Thesis Exhibition, Part I.

Visit the solo exhibitions by our third-year MFA candidates:

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1. Substrate —> Spasm by Simon Klein — Room Gallery
2. We Begin to Wilt Beneath the Son by Gwyneth Bulawsky — University Art Gallery
3. Catastrophe by Jacob Lenc — Contemporary Arts Center Gallery

And opening Saturday, May 9, 2–5 PM: Part II, featuring solo exhibitions by Teresa Ho, David Ditman, and Cecil Yuzhe Zhang.

Photos by Yubo D**g /

𝘈𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘵𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵: Natascha Sadr Haghighian

Across sound and textile, the whistle becomes a language of warning, care, and collective presence.

𝘕𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘮𝘺 𝘦𝘺𝘦𝘴 𝘩𝘶𝘳𝘵 (2023) is a textile banner with embroidery, rope, pulleys, and whistles, created in collaboration with Zeynab Izadyar and dedicated to Sudanese refugee activist Hassan Numan. The work considers the whistle as a tool of solidarity and resistance against deportation in Germany.

Presented alongside 𝘢𝘸𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 (2025), an eight-channel whistle composition by Elnaz Seyedi with whistles by Rie Watanabe, the installation transforms sharp, urgent sound into a resonant call against surveillance, detention, and enforced removal.

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1–5: Installation view of ‘Now that I can hear you my eyes hurt’ and ‘awakening’ by Natascha Sadr Haghigian, ‘The Unworld to Come. Imagining an Otherwise…,’ CAC Gallery, UC Irvine, 2026. Photographs by Paul Salveson.

This exhibition inaugurates the first phase of 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘕𝘦𝘨𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘰𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘦: 𝘌𝘮𝘱𝘪𝘳𝘦/𝘔𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘺, 𝘚𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦/𝘗𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘴, 𝘈𝘳𝘵/𝘐𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, a three-part research project within the University of California Climate Action Arts Network (UC CAAN), a system-wide initiative bringing together researchers, artists, students, and communities to confront the climate crisis through the arts. UC CAAN is supported by the UC Office of the President MRPI grant program.

‘The Unworld to Come. Imagining an Otherwise…’ is on view until April 4, 2026 at the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) Gallery, UC Irvine. Featuring works by Marwa Arsanios , Ashley Hunt , Natascha Sadr Haghighian, and Virgil B/G Taylor
Curated by Juli Carson , Annika Haas .s, and Sasha Ussef

Read more: uag.arts.uci.edu