Santa Barbara City College’s Atkinson Gallery and the SBCC Foundation have been awarded a $100,000 grant from the Getty Foundation to prepare for the next edition of the region-wide arts initiative Pacific Standard Time, scheduled to open in 2024.
Pacific Standard Time is a series of collaborations among institutions across Southern California. In each, organizations simultaneously present research-based exhibitions, publications, performances and public conversations that explore and illuminate a significant theme in the region’s cultural history.
In Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945–1980, more than 60 cultural institutions joined forces between October 2011 and March 2012 and rewrote the history of the birth and impact of the Los Angeles art scene.
In Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, presented September 2017 through January 2018, more than 70 institutions collaborated on a paradigm-shifting examination of Latin American and Latinx art, seen together as a hemispheric continuum.
For Pacific Standard Time: Art x Science x L.A. in 2024, the Atkinson Gallery joins a diverse community of 45 cultural, educational and scientific institutions, whose projects will explore the intertwined histories of art and science, past and present.
The Atkinson Gallery’s project, Cosmovisión Indígena: The Intersection of Indigenous Knowledge and Contemporary Art, is a partnership with the Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation, and Santa Barbara County Office of Art and Culture, with support of Mixteco Indigena Community Organizing Project/Proyecto Mixteco Indígena Organización Comunitaria, and the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden.
Whereas Mesoamerican dyeing and weaving are often categorized as crafts, that designation obscures the scientific and technical knowledge those processes require.
Focusing on the production of traditional red dye (carmine) from the cochineal insect, Cosmovisión Indígena will trace the history, science, and contemporary uses of the cochineal dye-making process, while exploring the mythology, ritual and storytelling used to preserve and pass on this traditional knowledge.
The project will establish an art lab and learning garden in Santa Barbara, as well as a community research space in Oxnard, serving members of the Mixtec, Zapotec and other indigenous communities from Oaxaca, Mexico, who have settled throughout Ventura County.
There, younger Oaxacan-American artists will be able to learn the science, technology, and art of dyeing and weaving from experienced practitioners. The final exhibition will display pieces created in both sites alongside curated artworks by contemporary artists and community members.
Curated by John Connelly, director, Atkinson Gallery; Frederick Janka, executive director, Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation, Ojai; and Audrey Lopez, public art and engagement curator, Santa Barbara County Office of Arts & Culture, Cosmovisión Indígena also has two lead artist advisors: Tanya Aguiñiga of Los Angeles and Porfirio Gutiérrez of Ventura and Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca, Mexico.
“I am thrilled that the Atkinson Gallery will have this opportunity to showcase its role as an essential educational art venue for Santa Barbara and Southern California,” said Connelly.
“While the gallery, its outdoor sculpture terrace and the expansive humanities art facilities will serve as a central hub for the overall Cosmovisión Indígena exhibition, it’s exciting that there is the potential for the entire Santa Barbara City College campus and its many diverse departments to be involved and engaged with the project,” he said.
“We applaud our partners for embracing remarkably diverse and imaginative approaches to this Pacific Standard Time’s theme of art and science,” said Joan Weinstein, director of the Getty Foundation.
“Beyond the inventiveness, they are bringing to their individual research topics, they will build new community partnerships and engage the public in civic dialogues around pressing issues of our time. This will be a Pacific Standard Time defined by creativity, curiosity and community,” she said.
In conjunction with the SBCC Foundation, the Atkinson Gallery will introduce the project to the SBCC campus and greater community in an art talk via Zoom, 4 p.m. Feb. 22, with the project’s three main curators and a special presentation by the two artist advisors.
“Art has always been a powerful force for social change and cross-cultural understanding. Over the past decade, the Pacific Standard Time initiative has brought together world-class exhibitions throughout the South and Central Coast,” said Geoff Green, SBCC Foundation CEO.
“With the generous support of the Getty Foundation, we have the opportunity to demonstrate that SBCC’s Atkinson Gallery and the SBCC Art Department are part of this rich artistic community,” he said.
Pacific Standard Time is an initiative of the Getty Foundation, which seeks to fulfill the philanthropic mission of the Getty Trust by supporting individuals and institutions committed to advancing the greater understanding and preservation of the visual arts in Los Angeles and throughout the world. For more, visit www.getty.edu/foundation.