Arts Research Center
The Arts Research Center (ARC) at UC Berkeley is a think tank for the arts. It acts as a hub and a meeting place, a space for reflection where artists, scholars, curators, and civic arts leaders from a variety of disciplines can gather and learn from one another. ARC advances but also challenges the “cross-disciplinary” ethos in contemporary art practice by bringing innovators in the fields of visual art, creative writing, dance, theatre, music, architecture, film, public art, photography, and social practice into dialogue and debate. ARC serves as:
An Incubator
ARC fosters individual and collaborative research in the arts, supporting both published scholarship and new creative activity. ARC provides a forum to share, test, and critique new work by Berkeley and Visiting artists, writers, performers, and arts scholars.
A Nexus
ARC sponsors a broad range of programs that advance interdisciplinary arts research, including lectures and readings, conferences and symposia, fellowships for faculty and students, curriculum development grants, faculty seminars and salons, online discussion forums, and artists' residencies. ARC programs are often created in partnership with other universities, arts institutions, community organizations, and individual artists – in the past 3 years, we have enjoyed the support of over 40 affiliate partners and co-sponsors.
An Advocate
ARC champions the centrality of the arts in public life and at our public university. We promote the inclusion and support of the arts in a broad range of campus and community initiatives.
ARC was established in 1999 as the first organized research unit (ORU) at UC Berkeley devoted exclusively to the arts. Its over 70 faculty affiliates--faculty artists, scholars conducting arts-related research, and campus curators and producers--are drawn from over 23 departments and the colleges of Letters & Science, Environmental Design, Engineering, Graduate School of Journalism, School of Law, School of Public Health, and School of Public Policy, as well as the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive and Cal Performances.
