Sarah Ballard is a filmmaker and educator who’s practice fuses personal narratives with historical research to address broader structural inequalities based on gender and class. Ballard teaches at UWM and is a recipient of the 2025 Mary L. Nohl Fund Fellowships for Individual Artists.
The art of cinematic language isn't only reserved for big screen features and shorts. In recent years, serial programming has been finding its way back to the hearts of media lovers. There is a specific type of depth, nuance and audacity that can exist on the television screen that differs from theatrical releases. This creative difference has allowed many film directors to dip their toe into the episodic landscape, flexing their style, voice and commitment to a collective understanding of a serialized show. With this rising interest in television, we are hosting an artist talk with an Emerging Film Director, who has made her mark into the episodic landscape and proved that there is a best of both worlds.
Adebukola Bodunrin is a Nigerian-Canadian film, & video artist who explores language, culture, and media. In her collage animations, she manipulates film using unorthodox manual and digital techniques to produce unexpected cinematic experiences. Bodunrin’s animation work has been featured on the television series Transparent, and in KCET’s “Lost LA” series, for which she also won an LA Area Emmy award for segment direction.
Ceci Tejeda’s family roots are from Michoacán, Mexico, which is why she has Purepecha blood in her veins. Ever since she was a young girl, she’s admired her culture. She creates Alebrijes made of “cartoneria,” a unique and traditional papier-mâché technique from Mexico City. Tejeda also creates large-sized pieces that support various social justice movements and activism using the same method.
Ken Jacobs, one of the true radicals of American cinema and a lion of experimental film, passed October 5th, a mere season since his beloved wife and collaborator Flo preceded him. They lived long, full, beautiful lives. In addition to his inimitable work in film, video, painting, performance and all range of moving images, Ken started and was at the center of the film program at SUNY-Binghamton and co-founded The Millennium Film Workshop.
In a world silenced by a ban on music, a group of daring teens risks everything to rediscover it. They meet in secret to learn about all things musical, defying an oppressive government determined to keep them silent. But their newfound knowledge comes at a price. In Darkness, Audio Flowers Bloom is a bold, imaginative new work exploring resistance, identity and the unshakable human need for expression. Presented as part of the UWM Department of Theatre’s New Dramaworks series, this thrilling world premiere amplifies voices that refuse to be silenced.
Dan Grzeca is a Chicago-based artist and printmaker known for thousands of illustrations, hand-silkscreened prints and posters for bands like The Black Keys, Iron and Wine, Built to Spill, Ween and The Decemberists. His studio and shop is called Ground Up Press.
Worlds Within: Midwestern Microcultures is a photography exhibition curated by Peck School of the Arts Advanced Photography Students currently enrolled in ART 452: Contemporary Issues in Photography.
Join us to celebrate our students’ performances, featuring a diverse program of solo and chamber music works for the guitar!
In her debut feature, photographer and filmmaker Celeste Rojas Mugica confronts the political weight of images, revisiting her father’s photographic archive developed in exile in Latin America following activist involvement during the Pinochet dictatorship. 51 years later, this gentle, complex and visually resourceful account of densely traumatic history conjures an intimate family portrait from the dark room – opening spaces for reflection and resistance.
Michelle Grabner is an artist, writer, and curator, and Crown Family Professor of Art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work is in major museum collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago and Walker Art Center. She co-runs The Suburban (Milwaukee) and The Poor Farm (Little Wolf, WI), and is a 2025 Mary L. Nohl Fellow.
Chamber Music Milwaukee presents a powerful program exploring music created in times of war, including works connected to the Holocaust and the resilience of the human spirit. The concert features faculty artists Todd Levy (clarinet), Bernard Zinck (violin), Elena Abend (piano), and Jamie Hofman (violin), joined by guest artist Adrien Zitoun (cello) from the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.
Join us for a concert featuring the young violinists and violists of the UWM String Academy. From our newest beginners to our most advanced students, performers range in age from 4 to 18 and come from neighborhoods across greater Milwaukee. Their energy, focus, and creativity remind us how deeply children can inspire. Whether you're a friend, family member, or first-time guest, all are welcome.
Curated by MFA candidates from the Department of Film, Video, Animation and New Genres, these programs feature a unique opportunity to see some of the incredible 16mm prints from the UWM Cinema Arts Archive. For each program, the curator is invited to program a selection of films around a theme of their choosing.
Set in 1980s Naples, Scapino! is a zany reimagined farce inspired by Molière’s 1671 comedy Les Fourberies de Scapin. This madcap romp bursts with slapstick and fast-paces humor, including tall tales, bad impersonations, ridiculous chase scenes, disgruntled waiters, lovable panhandlers, melodic macaroni, and misbehaving sausages. Overflowing with physical comedy and rapid-fire humor, it’s a theatrical free-for-all that’s as unpredictable as it is hilarious. You’ve been warned: your belly might just ache from laughing so hard!
Xuan Ye blends art, music, and technology through improvisation and computation to create software, installations, and performances that explore dissonance and meaning. Their work has appeared at MOCA Toronto, Venice Architecture Biennale, UCCA Shanghai, MUTEK Montreal, and more.
Jean Carlo is a versatile performer, composer and educator that connects western and nonwestern tradition into concert settings. He has performed with the National Symphony Orchestra of Santo Domingo, Jackson Symphony, Toledo Symphony and Adrian Symphony. He has performed on multiple occasions in New Music Detroit’s, Strange Beautiful Music (SBM) annual concert series. He is the founder and co-director of the first Dominican percussion ensemble that combines western and Caribbean musical traditions, ATEZA’O. Ureña González, joins the faculty of the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music as a Assistant Professor of Percussion in the Fall of 2023.
Iva Radivojević was born in Belgrade and spent her early years in Yugoslavia, Cyprus and NYC. She is an artist and filmmaker who currently divides her time between Athens and Lesbos. Her work presents itself as a collection of fragments {observations, poetry, images, sounds, melodies, languages} which collage together to connect into a ruminating whole. The work circles around dislocation, migration and belonging, seeking to connect to the metaphysical or the magical.
Wes Larsen is an assistant professor of design at UWM. His work spans graphic art, performance, writing and publishing, focusing on obfuscation and irreverence to explore meaning. He uses diverse print and media methods and previously ran the indie design studio Tocco in Fort Worth, Texas.
Looking to learn more insight and practical knowledge on our larger art industries, and how to prepare for an art-life post-graduation? Special Features is an artist talk and workshop series that is meant to provide filmmakers and artists with practical and insightful advice and skills as they navigate a variety of film industries.