Illustration by Christine Hipp.

UC Santa Cruz fourth-year Wesley Goto has more on his mind than senioritis. The Porter community assistant (CA) has been hard at work designing the Asian-American cultural festival, a “dream project” for the graduating student.

The festival, which will take place in the Porter breezeway from 1–5 p.m. on April 14, will showcase a broader definition of Asian culture with the aim of dispelling stereotypes.

“The Asian Cultural Festival is a big celebration of Asian culture,” Goto said. “I’m not talking about the stereotypical Chinese, Korean, Japanese. We’re trying to pull in a little bit of everything. This is a celebration of true culture — not just [a] play on stereotypes.”

The event will consist of many booths where patrons can learn about many Asian cultures in a fun and interactive way. At Goto’s booth, for instance, he and his team will teach the history and mythology behind the nearly 400 year-old art of origami.

“The festival will host different booths at which students will make crafts while learning about Asian culture,” Goto said. “Each station will be fun, but will also carry with it a historical lesson or something to take away.”

Goto said he hopes the event has a lasting effect on the student body.

“Stereotypes don’t reveal the true fundamentals of culture,” Goto said. “The biggest thing I see with the stereotyping of individuals is that you don’t really know what’s really there,  the core fundamentals of the culture.”

Goto said education should not be  restricted to classrooms and hopes that the event’s outdoor location will draw a diverse crowd of passersby.

“Living on campus … your education is primarily in the classroom,” Goto said. “Our job is to educate beyond the classroom, in a non-traditional way.”

Fellow Porter CA Halan Guedi has invited local artists to showcase their Asian culture-inspired work in art installations, which will be located in the I-Lounge at Porter College.

Porter CA and assistant planner Victoria Anderson said the event will be a “big festival”.

“It’s a celebration of history, tradition, culture,” Anderson said. “We’re here to educate, [but also to] just have fun!”

How will the group measure the success of the event?

“Success means that they are walking away with something that they didn’t know before and they learned it in a fun way,” Goto said. “The biggest thing that I am trying to push is appreciation for things that you don’t necessarily identify with.”

Newton and Helen harrison’s new exhibit, currently on display at the Sesnon Gallery, explores global climate change through a variety of mediums.

The walls of the Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery are covered in maps. Some stretch from floor to ceiling, some bear scribbled notes and some hang between photographs and diagrams. These are the maps that make up “The Harrison Studio: On Mixing, Mapping and Territory.”

The work comes from Newton and Helen Mayer Harrison, honorary professors-in-residence at UC Santa Cruz in the Digital Arts and New Media graduate program and pioneering artists in the ecological art movement — a term that refers to artistic work dealing with ecological issues. For more than 40 years, the Harrisons have explored solutions to support biodiversity and environmental consciousness through cutting-edge artistic practices.

“[The Harrisons] have encountered a lot of really influential artists we study today and they’re quietly living in Santa Cruz,” said gallery director and co-curator Shelby Graham. “We’re so lucky to have them here.”

The husband and wife team composes their art using maps to demonstrate their environmental concerns and question how the negative forces acting on the global climate have affected the planet.

“A map is an image that privileges one thing or another,” Newton said. “We will make a map that has subject matter we think is important such as river systems, mountains, forests or alternatively, things we disagree with.”

The Harrisons’ maps primarily focus on telling the stories of global warming, which they have dubbed a force majeure — a force with so much dimension that there can be no resistance.

“[The force majeure] is really a connection and combination of all the industrial processes and forces that work negatively together to contribute to global warming,” Helen said.

For the Harrisons, a project emerges when they notice a pattern. In the past, they have focused on issues such as urban renewal, agriculture and forestry, recognizing patterns in the environment that reflect larger global changes. By using maps, the Harrisons are able to present these changes in a way that audiences can grasp, as mapping and recognizing patterns are two key methods to building familiarity with places or concepts.

“Pattern recognition is almost the basis for survival,” Newton said. “Many things happen to you as you see a pattern change or distort.”

The artists might take out all the streets in a map to highlight the waterways, enlarge countries for effect or add elements to show the ecological forces acting on the planet. They can’t always articulate this goal themselves so they call on biologists, urban planners and historians, yet are wary to call their artistic process a collaboration.

“We need a lot of help,” Newton said. “Lots of people help us but so do books and so does the Internet. And also we help others. Collaboration is sort of a throw-away word for people helping each other to get from one place to another.”

The work itself is a marriage of various formal elements. Using maps, photographs and text, the artists reflect the complexity of these global issues and the multi-faceted efforts needed to overcome them. In particular, the written text accompanying these maps serves to enhance the exhibit’s storyline.

“Essentially the work is as narrative as it is visual,” Helen said. “In using poetic prose, the language has denotation but it also has connotation. It opens peoples’ imaginations.”

Particularly in the small space of the Sesnon Gallery, the text is essential to informing the audience and moving them between images and ideas presented throughout the work. The balance between text and image helps shape the story of the powerful environmental shift affecting the world.

“We try to strike a balance with a particular kind of poetic prose,” Newton said. “The value of [prose] is that it lets you condense information.”

Throughout the exhibition, the idea of paying attention continues to arise as a recurring theme. The writing on the walls of the Sesnon urges gallery-goers to “pay attention to the meaning of nature” and the first work that one encounters upon entering the gallery begs the question, “Who’s thinking about this eventuality?”

The world and its global climate are changing before our eyes. The Harrison Studio strives to recognize the patterns before it’s too late to stop this force majeure.

The Harrison Studio: On Mixing, Mapping and Territory will be on display through March 15, Tues.–Sat., 12–5 p.m., Wed. 12–8 p.m. The Earth as Metaphor eco-art lecture series takes place at the Porter Faculty Gallery Wednesday evenings from 4:30–6 p.m.

Through its numerous incarnations, the event has evolved from its original title of “Alternative Fashion Show” to the current “Queer Fashion Show” — and this year’s superhero themed extravaganza is sure to pack some Batman and Robin flavored POW!

“It’s a safe space and we try to get as much involvement as we can,” director Ben Flores said. “And we have fun.”

Courtesy of Molly Solomon.

Auditions for numbers in this spring’s show were held on Jan. 26. The show is scheduled to take place in May as a part of Pride Week, a campus-wide celebration of the queer and allied communities. Past performances of QFS have featured dance, spoken word and of course fashion. And Flores is open to “whatever people want to perform.”

The show is completely student-run and the leadership team of graduating seniors is comprised of Flores, producer Gabriela Espinal, Mariah Corbin, Baldemar Hernandez and David Wilmore. The five listened to proposals from artists on Saturday morning to discern which pieces would be a good match for this year’s production, but their work also extends far beyond the creative process.

“It’s all student-run so as far as performances, anything goes,” Flores said. “But we do have to think about a budget and reserving a venue and the business side of things.”

Though the Porter student activities office does provide some funds and advisors to keep the show on track, it’s up to the directors to make the rest of the magic happen. This involves asking college senates for potential funding, raising the rest of the money themselves through bake sales and reserving a space to actually hold the show. But volunteering their time isn’t a problem for these student organizers with a passion for the cause.

“I had recently come out as bisexual and I wasn’t really okay with myself but when you watch the show, you can relate,” said Flores on his first encounter with QFS in 2011.

QFS has meant a lot to them throughout their time at UCSC, whether they found the show when struggling with their own sexuality or were simply intrigued by the name.

“It’s a community to share and be yourself,” Hernandez said. “And a safe place for people to express themselves. You gain something from it no matter what you do.”

Queer Fashion Show leaders held auditions for numbers on Saturday morning for spring’s show. From left to right: Gabriela Espinal, Mariah Corbin, Ben Flores, Baldemar Hernandez and David Wilmore. Photo by Daniela Ruiz.

A second audition will be held Feb. 2 in the Porter Hitchcock Lounge — time TBD — for those looking to produce a piece. A general informational meeting will be held in the coming weeks for interested performers. Choreographers and designers will be looking for dancers and models from all communities, with no specific experience necessary. QFS strives to be open to as many people as possible.

“It’s really the Queer Family Show,” Espinal said.

All the directors endorse the opportunity as a meaningful way to get involved with a tight knit and supportive community.

“It’s a great way to connect with different people, have fun and make a lot of friends,” Flores said. “If you have the chance, do it.”

On what was possibly the hottest day of the year thus far, an ever-growing crowd gathered at the Porter Meadow for one of UC Santa Cruz’s most infamous traditions — 4/20. 

A quick look at 4/20 shows a huge gathering of people celebrating marijuana. Yet there are many different ways this yearly occurrence affects the city of Santa Cruz. People from all over the country came, and there was not an empty parking spot to be found near campus, with the license plates ranging from New Mexico to Nebraska.

A 2004 Rolling Stone magazine article by Vanessa Grigoriadis entitled “The Most Stoned Students on the Most Stoned Day on the Most Stoned Campus on Earth,” earned Santa Cruz a reputation as the place to be on April 20.

Estimates of the 4/20 crowd varied from several hundred to the several thousands. Vladimir Kozyrev, a second-year, said he felt the numbers had diminished since last year. Bella Ferro, a first-year who was walking back from the meadow, had a different estimate. 

“There were 5,000 people last year, so you know there must have been more this year,” she said. “It gets bigger every year.” 

The influx of people and their appetite-stimulating activities had a unique, but perhaps expected, affect on some close-to-campus food services.

Kent Bailey, the assistant director for UCSC dining, was on his way to the College Eight dining hall as the clock struck 4:20. 

“Last year, we experienced a huge upsurge at College Eight,” Bailey said. “It was overpacked and students were shoulder-to-shoulder in the dining hall.” 

To make matters worse, this year both Cowell and Porter dining halls are closed due to construction.

“Our principle concern is the number of people on campus. We’re trying to provide a safe environment,” Bailey said. “So we’re going to be careful in not allowing too many people into the dining hall.” 

Despite how careful they were, the College Eight dining hall was indeed hectic all afternoon.

Candace Hoppe, a fourth-year literature major, cashed in on the increased snack demand on 4/20 by selling munchies to hungry smokers in Porter Meadow. 

“We’re raising money for the teen center downtown, which is having financial difficulties at the moment,” said Hoppe, while exchanging two Fruit Loops for a buck with a tie-dyed stoner. “We’ve made over $200 so far.”

The way Hoppe sees it, the idea is to take advantage of this extremely popular event to bring money into the community.

Just off campus, at the Cardiff Street 7-11, assistant manager Ron Rabdeau was swamped. 

“I probably ended up with a thousand more people than on a normal day,” Rabdeau said. “I used to work at the 7-11 on Ocean and Broadway, and it gets a lot more business than this one. But today, I can guarantee you that we made six times what they make. And most of it was Swishers.” 

Overall, Rabdeau said the clientele was cordial, with no outstanding “idiots or assholes” — just a lot of people “high as kites.”

“At least they were all smart enough to keep hydrated. Lots of water, Gatorade and Slurpees. Oh my God, the poor Slurpee machine nearly had a breakdown.”