UCLA alumna is thought for humorous examinations of inauspicious topics whereas amplifying marginalized experiences.
Contributed by Tracey Paleo, Gia On The Move
(Los Angeles) Award-winning actor, playwright, efficiency artist, and activist Kristina Wong will ship the keynote deal with on the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture’s 2023 graduation on Saturday, June seventeenth at 4 p.m.
“My time as a World Arts and Culture major profoundly shaped how I think as an artist and activist today,” mentioned Wong. “Those earliest provocations on art as a social action are still embedded in my work now. I’m so honored to be back where it all started and share these insights with the Class of 2023.”
Wong is a Doris Duke Artist Award winner, Guggenheim Fellow, and a Pulitzer Prize finalist in Drama. Her work has been offered internationally throughout North America and Africa, and within the UK and Hong Kong. Her solo present “Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord” is a New York Times Critic’s Pick that premiered off-Broadway at New York Theater Workshop and lately accomplished a run at Center Theatre Group’s Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City. The present gained the 2022 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Solo Show and the 2022 Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Solo Performance and was nominated for the 2022 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Solo Performance. The present is impressed by Auntie Sewing Squad, a nationwide all-volunteer mutual help community Wong based throughout the COVID-19 pandemic to stitch material masks for susceptible communities. Their e book “The Auntie Sewing Squad Guide to Mask Making, Radical Care, and Racial Justice” was revealed by the University of California Press in 2021.
“I know that our students will be inspired by Kristina’s commitment to creating community and social change through her art–and will be especially moved by her doing so with ingenuity, bold humor, and heart through these especially challenging past several years,” mentioned Brett Steele, dean of the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture. “Having her with us for commencement will empower our students as they embark on their own next chapters shaping the future through their creative expressions.”
Her present “Kristina Wong for Public Office” is concurrently a real-life stint because the elected sub-district 5 consultant of Wilshire Center Koreatown Neighborhood Council and comedic marketing campaign commentary. That present was filmed for Center Theatre Group’s Digital Stage, the place she’s additionally a Creative Collective member. Wong has created and directed authentic theater works with residents of LA’s Skid Row, the Bus Riders Union, undocumented immigrants, and the previously incarcerated Asian Pacific Islanders members of API Rise.
She’s been awarded artist residencies from MacDowell, San Diego International Airport, and the Ojai Playwrights Conference and is concurrently the artist-in-residence at ASU Gammage and a social apply resident on the Kennedy Center. Wong has made seven full size solo exhibits that embrace “Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” “The Wong Street Journal,” and “Going Green the Wong Way.” She’s been a visitor on late evening exhibits on NBC, Comedy Central, and FX. She starred in her personal pilot presentation with Lionsgate for truTV. Her work has been awarded with help from Creative Capital, The MAP Fund, Center for Cultural Innovation, National Performance Network, a COLA Master Artist Fellowship from the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, 9 Los Angeles Artist-in-Residence grants, Center Theatre Group’s Sherwood Award, the Art Matters Foundation, and the Joan D. Firestone Commissioning Fund from En Garde Arts. She can also be this 12 months’s recipient of the UCLA Alumni Award for Community Service.
Details:
- Saturday, June seventeenth at 4 p.m.
- In individual
- UCLA Campus, Dickson Court North (Perloff Quad)
- For extra details about the UCLA Arts 2023 graduation, go to the college’s graduation web site.
Photo by Kylie Carrigan: Kristina Wong