About

Introduction

Founded in 2006, the UCLA Art & Global Health Center specializes in reinventing sexual health education, devising new methods for stigma reduction, reinforcing human empowerment, and catalyzing behavior change.

Blending community engagement with arts activist training accompanied by rigorous research, our work addresses comprehensive sexual health education, women’s empowerment, gender equality, LGBTQ identity and inclusion, and anti-racism, all while building the case for arts-based public health interventions in general. Housed within the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture, we nurture a global network of artists, students, academics, and advocates working in the realm of public health.

Los Angeles is our laboratory, but the world is our home. We work on five continents, engaging with people and places where the need is greatest, where a stroke of creativity can lead to finding a new solution to an intractable health problem, and where finding an effective way to communicate health information makes all the difference.

Our Principles

Center programs challenge communities and individuals to reconsider preconceived notions of intimacy in an age of disease, and of tolerance in an age of distrust. Our endeavors are shepherded by the following guiding principles:

1. The Power of a Global Network of Artists

We aim to facilitate collaboration between artists and advocates working for the advancement of global health, strengthening public health interventions through improved communication and participation in an international artists’ network.

2. The Creative Process as a Catalyst for Change

Our programs seek to create points of personal identification through art as a means to elicit empathy, understanding, and emotional growth through recognition of a shared humanity.

3. De-Centered Sites of Artistic Encounter

We aim to expand our audience into sites of encounter beyond elite spaces. These sites are portable, virtual, village level, street level; they reach all populations.

4. Education as Action

We seek to develop, implement and evaluate arts-based educational programs, taking advantage of the laboratory provided by UCLA to ascertain the most effective means to educate and empower youth in the movement against HIV/AIDS.

Our Work

The UCLA Art & Global Health Center nurtures a global network of artists and advocates working in the realm of public health. Harnessing the communicative power of the arts, the Center creates public health interventions that celebrate life, buttressed by principles of human rights and social justice.

Our key initiatives blend performance studies with public health, behavior change communication with medicine, social justice theory with practical application. Because our methods are founded in the arts, we begin with storytelling, with characters or images. And then, through the complex alchemy of identification, we break down the stigmas that prevent people from accessing the healthcare they want and need.

Individual Supporters

The UCLA Art & Global Health Center is supported in part by generous individuals whose investments provide critical resources needed to unleash the transformative power of the arts to advance global health. Support the UCLA Art & Global Health Center by making a gift today.

Institutional & Corporate Funders

The UCLA Art & Global Health Center is grateful for the support of many funders who share our vision. Grants from these generous organizations provide critical support for specific programs and fund our general operating expenses. Current and previous funders include:

The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts
The David and Linda Shaheen Foundation
The Ford Foundation
The Herb Ritts Foundation
UCLA School of the Arts & Architecture
UCLA Department of World Arts & Cultures/Dance

AIDS Healthcare Foundation
AIDS Project Los Angeles
City of Los Angeles AIDS Coordinator’s Office
The Clarence and Anne Dillon Dunwalke Charitable Trust
Gilead Sciences, Inc.
Godrej Industries
Gold Shield Alumnae of UCLA
Los Angeles Unified School District HIV/AIDS Prevention Unit
Resnick Family Foundation
UCLA Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research
UCLA AIDS Institute
UCLA International Institute
Ueltschi Service Learning Course Development Grant (UNC)
University of North Carolina Center for AIDS Research (CFAR)
The U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)

Institutional Partners & Organizational Collaborators

Emory University Department of Anthropology
Emory University Rollins School of Public Health
SisterLove, Inc.
Positively Speaking

UNC Department of Communication Studies
UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health/
Health Behavior Capstone Project
UNC Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention

The UCLA Art & Global Health Center is a part of the Department of World Arts & Cultures/Dance at the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture.




The UCLA Art & Global Health Center acknowledges the Gabrielino/Tongva peoples as the traditional land caretakers of Tovaangar (Los Angeles basin, So. Channel Islands) and is grateful to have the opportunity to work for the taraaxatom (indigenous peoples) in this place. As a land grant institution, we pay our respects to Honuukvetam (Ancestors), 'Ahiihirom (Elders), and 'eyoohiinkem (our relatives/relations) past, present and emerging.

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