Winter Holidays Museum Exhibitions

Looking for family-friendly winter break activities? The Fowler Museum on the UCLA campus and the Hammer Museum in Westwood Village are both hosting exhibitions with strong connections to Los Angeles's past, present and future. Northern California alumni can also enjoy art exhibits from various UC art programs coming to the Sausalito Center for the Arts this spring.

Fowler Museum

The exhibit “Fire Kinship: Southern California Native Ecology and Art” at the Fowler Museum is an immersive experience which explores the fire stewardship practices of four Southern California Indigenous communities — Tongva, Cahuilla, Luiseño and Kumeyaay — through objects, stories and art.

The exhibit is a timely invitation to consider the first inhabitants of Southern California and their relationship with natural elements. For centuries, these communities have chosen to view fire as a regenerative and vital tool for land stewardship.

The exhibit begins with a section called “Our Fire Relative,” with everyday objects made from natural materials and an exploration of how the objects are connected to fire practices. Visitors can explore the intricate structure of a woven basket, a practice central to indigenous history. “Basket weavers are experts on the plant materials that need fire. We use that conversation as an entrypoint to get to know not only the ecosystem, but also the challenges of gathering plant material today.”

There are also artworks that have been specially commissioned to explore the fire theme, including Weshoyot Alvitre’s Dormidera portrait series honoring Indigenous women; a multimedia work by Gerald Clarke Jr. with birdsong, video and natural materials; and Leah Mata Fragua’s installation featuring poppy-dyed paper sculptures. Fragua says about her piece, “My mission is to create ephemeral works that honor my community's values around sustainability practices, while shedding light on pressing environmental issues.”

The next section, “Fire Scars,” walks the viewer through the history of fire suppression through archival materials, including a diary entry from a Spanish explorer and the National Parks fire suppression materials. The final section, “Begging to Burn,” explores the revitalization of fire practices and how younger generations are joining the conversation.

The exhibit is curated by Daisy Ocampo Diaz (Caxcan), assistant professor of history at Cal State San Bernardino; Lina Tejeda (Pomo), a graduate student research assistant at Cal State San Bernardino; and Michael Chavez (Tongva), a former Fowler archaeological collections manager and NAGPRA project manager.

As part of their process, the curators gathered a committee of community leaders from the four tribes. They say, “At every gathering and workshop meeting, our partners expanded our scope, connected us across tribal networks, and ensured that we were well on our way.”

“Fire Kinship: Southern California Native Ecology and Art” runs through April 12, 2026. The museum is open to the public Wednesday through Sunday, though holiday hours may vary. Admission is free.

Hammer Museum

In Westwood Village, the Hammer Museum is hosting Made in L.A. 2025, the seventh iteration of the biennial series. Curators Essence Harden and Paulina Pobocha spent more than a year immersing themselves in Los Angeles’s art scene to develop the exhibition which features the work of 27 local artists and gives the viewer insight into the ideas emerging from Los Angeles’s art world.

The curators have created a mix of new installations, videos, sculptures and paintings commissioned for the show as well as significant archival work. The catalogue for the show states, “Neither myth nor monolith, Los Angeles is many things to many people, and its dissonance is perhaps its most distinguishing feature.”

Six of the artists included in the show are UCLA alumni:

Pat O’Neill ’62, M.A. ’64, the first American to receive a master’s degree in moving image art from UCLA in the predigital era
Na Mira, M.F.A. ’13, an experimental artist who creates video and sound installations
Hanna Hur, M.F.A. ’19, who develops work through time, sight and touch
Beaux Mendes, M.F.A. ’19, who creates abstract works “animated by latent apparitional figures”
Carl Cheng ’63, M.A. ’67, whose early sculptures were inspired by aerospace, industrial design and consumer electronics
Nicole-Antonia Spagnola, M.A. ’18, a multimedia artist whose short film “1-2-3: Apartment Gallery” can be viewed in three locations at the Hammer, including the Billy Wilder Theater box office windows

In the main gallery, a giant green pickle leans against a mustard-yellow cylinder and a smear of ketchup-hued red - this is O’Neill’s 1964 piece “Safer Than Springtime.” His sculptural forms are “objects born of science fiction and the very real innovations of the aerospace industry that flourished in Southern California during the second half of the 20th century.”

In stark contrast to O’Neill’s playful sculpture, Hanna Hur’s five- canvases artwork “Suspension” (2025) stands alone in the Vault Gallery. According to the audio guide, “The overwhelming size and visual effect of these vastly scaled fields of white prompt an intense physical response in the viewer, rooted in visual phenomena and enigmatic imagery.”

Don’t forget to bring headphones if you choose to listen to the audio guide, accessible by scanning the QR code on your phone. The guide not only expands on your understanding of the artwork but also poses questions for deepening your engagement with the art. Parts of the guide were written by Julia Park ’25, a UCLA alum and former student educator at the Hammer Museum.

The exhibit at the Hammer runs through March 1, 2026. Admission is free.

Sausalito Center for the Arts

For alumni in Northern California, “Open Inquiry: UC Arts” will open at the Sausalito Center for the Arts this spring. The exhibition brings together artists from the renowned University of California art programs. “Open Inquiry” is a celebration of public arts education and highlights the interconnectedness of research and artistic practice.

The exhibit features 60 works in a variety of mediums by current students and young alumni from UCLA, UC Berkeley and UC Davis. Curator Jennifer Bailey Wechsler, who sits on the UCLA Arts board and is a parent of two recent UCLA graduates says, “Through the practice of art in our daily lives, minds can be changed, stories can be told and personal experiences can be transformed into work that can impact the world.”

The exhibition runs from March 14 through April 16, 2026. Bruins are invited to attend the opening reception on Saturday, March 21, from 3 to 6 p.m. The Sausalito Center for the Arts (SCA) is a cultural community center that revitalized the formerly unoccupied Bank of America building in downtown Sausalito.