Click an event link below to see what is going on at the College of Design.
Department of the History of Art and Architecture
January 2026
5:30 p.m.
Migrant Glyps is a storytelling-talk by Edgar Garcia (University of Chicago, English) about geoglyphs in the Sonoran Desert and their life at the intersection of indigeneity and migration in the Americas.
Edgar Garcia is Associate Professor of English at the University of Chicago and a poet and scholar of the hemispheric cultures of the Americas. His scholarship and creative practices are concerned with the world-bearing qualities of literary works at the intersection of literary studies, the visual arts, anthropology, legal philosophy, and environmental thinking.
This event is supported generously by the Oregon Humanities Center, the Creative Writing Program, and the Department of the History of Art and Architecture, departments of Comparative Literature, English, and Romance Languages. For inquiries, please contact Joyce S. Cheng at joycec@uoregon.edu.
School of Art + Design Events
January 2026
4:30–7:00 p.m.
Presented by the Center for Art Research The Whisperers January 17- February 15, 2026 curated by Tannaz Farsi and Simone Ciglia
Saturday, January 17 Curator walkthrough from 4:30-5:00 p.m. Opening reception from 5:00- 7:00 p.m.
Gallery Hours: Saturdays & Sundays from noon- 4:00 p.m. and by appointment Location: Ditch Projects, 303 S 5th St #165, Springfield, OR 97477
The “archival impulse,” an essay by Hal Foster, animated a significant trend in contemporary art since the early 2000s. This opened an unorthodox use of the archive through a multiplicity of methodological and aesthetic strategies which included critiquing and dismantling the alleged neutrality of the institution by highlighting its gaps, absences, and biases; expanding representation to include suppressed and peripheral histories; and complicating the construction of the archive through fiction and speculation.
Produced by the Center for Art Research at the University of Oregon, The Whisperers considers experimental practices imformed by the archive in recent contemporary art. The featured works by national and international artists challenge the conventions of the archive by reanimating exclusionary histories defined by patriarchy or colonial oppression, addressing forms of disobedience and resistance, and incorporating the refused and unrealized.
This exhibition is made possible by the University of Oregon Department of Art’s Center for Art Research and the Ford Family Foundation.
The College of Design is hosting its annual Career Week. Come practice your career skills and strategies. Join us for a rousing week of professional activities! You will learn about application processes, internships, interviews, resume building, and more. In Lawrence Hall and UO Portland.
10:00 a.m.–4:40 p.m.
The School of Art + Design annual Career Futures event connects students with professionals who represent career paths in arts, art & technology, and product design. Professionals share their career-path stories, their experiences in their fields/industries, and their advice for students.
Panel Discussions- open to all students: 10:00- 11:30 a.m. Product Design Panel Discussion in LA 197 12:00- 1:30 p.m. Art Panel Discussion in LA 274 2:00- 3:30 p.m. Art & Technology Panel Discussion in LA 197
Post-Panel Sessions- registration required for portfolio review sessions: 11:30 a.m.- 12:30 p.m. Product Design Portfolio Review Session in LA 197 1:30- 2:30 p.m. Art “Ask Me Anything” Session in LA 274 3:30- 4:30 p.m. Art & Technology Portfolio Reviews Session in LA 197
Please visit the College’s “College of Design Career Week” page for links to the post-panel session registrations.
February 2026
4:00 p.m.
University of Oregon 2025-26 Visiting Artist Lecture Series Presented by the Department of Art and Center for Art Research
The lecture will be followed by an exhibition reception for Reza Safavi in the Laverne Krause Gallery.
Reza Safavi’s research examines how technology shapes experience. He uses sculpture, video, game engines, light, sound, drawing, performance, analog and digital devices as well as elements of the natural world to create interactive experiences that highlight the interfaces, both macro and micro, among communities, technology, consciousness and the environment. Receiving his MFA from the UO in 2006, Reza is thrilled to return to give a talk on his work and where he has been for the last 20 years.
Reza Safavi’s practice is shaped by a hybrid sense of identity. Raised in Canada after the Multiculturalism Act of 1988, he explores cultural juxtapositions through material and digital forms. Living and working in the U.S., he continues this inquiry through research and practice. Reza has been a member of several artists’ groups and, in addition to his solo work, he regularly participates in making of collaborative projects. His artwork has been exhibited and presented regionally nationally and internationally in diverse venues ranging from galleries and museums to public installations and performances. He is Professor of Art at Washington State University and holds an MFA from the University of Oregon (2006) and a BFA from the University of Victoria, in Victoria, BC, Canada.
This lecture and exhibition are made possible by the Laverne Krause Lectures and Exhibitions endowment.
School of Architecture & Environment
January 2026
6:00–8:00 p.m.
Please join the University of Oregon’s Portland Architecture Program on Wednesday, January 14 at 6:00pm for a book talk and conversation with Sam Bloch, author of Shade: The Promise of a Forgotten Natural Resource. This is a public event in the Winter 2026 UO School of Architecture & Environment Lecture Series, co-sponsored by Design Portland and SOJ. The event is free for students and UO affiliates. RSVP here. Note that this event will be held at the City of Possibility space in downtown Portland (JK Gill Building, 426 SW Harvey Milk St.). Talk Description: Shade plays a vital role in enhancing livability, human health, and sustainability in Portland—a historically temperate city now known for killer summer heat. As global climate change and runaway urban development raises local temperatures, access to shade is already becoming essential for survivability and environmental justice. Learn how awnings, trees, and more thoughtful urban design can cool the city, reduce energy costs and carbon emissions, and make Portland safer and more accessible to all. Shade's distribution reflects profound inequalities—and expanding it can be a critical step in shaping Portland's cooler and fairer future.
Sam Bloch is an environmental journalist and the author of Shade: The Promise of a Forgotten Natural Resource, a "compelling ... conversation-starter" (NPR) named one of The New Yorker's best books of the year. Previously a staff writer at The Counter, Bloch has written about the intersection of climate change and urban design for Places Journal, Slate, CityLab, Landscape Architecture Magazine, and The New York Times, and has been published by L.A. Weekly, Art in America, Artnet and others. Bloch is a graduate of the Columbia Journalism School and a former MIT Knight Science Journalism Fellow and Emerson Collective Fellow. He is based in New York City, where he lives with his partner and their son.
The College of Design is hosting its annual Career Week. Come practice your career skills and strategies. Join us for a rousing week of professional activities! You will learn about application processes, internships, interviews, resume building, and more. In Lawrence Hall and UO Portland.
School of Planning, Public Policy and Management
January 2026
The College of Design is hosting its annual Career Week. Come practice your career skills and strategies. Join us for a rousing week of professional activities! You will learn about application processes, internships, interviews, resume building, and more. In Lawrence Hall and UO Portland.
April 2026
5:00 p.m.
What is Research? (2026) will explore various natures, purposes, and roles of research across disciplines, fields, and areas. The event will consider frameworks of systematic and creative inquiry, including methods, designs, analyses, discoveries, collaborations, dissemination, ethics, integrity, diversity, media/technologies, and information environments.
This year delves into research in its many forms, including searching, critically investigating, and re-examining existing knowledge, as well as emerging functions and procedures in machine intelligence and computation. It will highlight pluralities of research pathways, examining time-honored approaches and new ways of knowing, precedents, issues, and futures. It considers challenges and possibilities that researchers face in today’s rapidly changing world, and ways to promote ethical, inclusive, and impactful research.
The event celebrates the thirtieth anniversary of the Communication and Media Studies Doctoral Program in the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon.