UCSD - University of California - San Diego

10/13/2026 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 10/13/2026 05:33

‘It’s Like Writing a Book’: Chief Campus Curator Jess Berlanga Taylor on Bringing Vision to Life

Published Date

October 13, 2026

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As executive director and chief campus curator, Jess Berlanga Taylor brings new artistic voices and perspectives to UC San Diego's Stuart Collection, the university's collection of permanent, site-specific public art.

That vision takes shape at the new Triton Center with the arrival of "La asamblea del barro" ("The Clay Assembly") by Mexican artist duo RojoNegro, Noé Martínez and María Sosa.

The installation features 260 ceramic signs affixed to towering structures. Drawing on archaeological, ethnographic and oral-history research, the work explores the continuity and transformation of knowledge among Indigenous peoples of Mexico. A companion book will document the research that informed the work and include images of the ceramic figures. The installation is taking shape at Triton Center and will open on Nov. 2, 2026.

Part of the Stuart Collection's Emerging Artists program, "La asamblea del barro" is the first commission by Latinx artists and the 23rd artwork to join the 45-year-old collection.

Berlanga Taylor sat down with UC San Diego Today to talk about the Stuart Collection's legacy and to share the story behind its newest sculpture, including why it represents such a meaningful milestone for the campus.

Q: How would you describe your curatorial process?

JBT: Curating is a form of research. It involves sustained inquiry into artists' practices, histories and contexts, and developing ideas through the relationships between artworks, people and places. Curatorial work is also authorship, it's like writing a book. It becomes very personal and very intimate. So I always start by trying to understand the context I'm going to be working in: who inhabits it, its histories and how the art I want to bring might add to or complicate what's already there. I like to focus on the place where the conversation between people and the artwork is going to happen.

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The Strauss Family Gallery

RojoNegro's commission joins a broader expansion of the visual arts at UC San Diego.

Located in the heart of campus in the Triton Center complex, the Strauss Family Gallery opens in spring 2027. Dedicated to art, science and technology, The Strauss will present historical and contemporary exhibitions, new commissions and public programs that spark curiosity and bring artistic practice into conversation with research.

Its galleries and terrace will welcome students, the campus community and visitors to explore new perspectives, share ideas and experience the joy of discovery through art.

With the Stuart Collection, I look at what is already present and ask what is missing from the discourse. That's how we selected the artists for the Emerging Artists commissions. My process also involves deep research into the artists themselves: what they read, what music they listen to, who their references are in the art world. I try to get into their worlds and their heads.

Q: 'Curatorial work as authorship?' Say more about that.

JBT: Curatorial work is about creating relationships: between ideas, contexts, histories, people and materials. The way a curator draws those connections, to propose an idea, to argue for a way of seeing, is very personal and particular. You can't really separate your values and beliefs from what and how you're curating. It's about how you connect all of these different variables, taking fragments of information and bringing them together to produce something new.

From left to right: One of the 260 hand-painted ceramic signs; a rendering of "La asamblea del barro"; artist duo RojoNegro

Q: RojoNegro's work is being installed at UC San Diego this fall. Can you explain the significance of their work joining the Stuart Collection?

JBT: RojoNegro doesn't operate within the hyper-visible part of the contemporary art world. What's especially meaningful is that Chancellor [Pradeep K.] Khosla specifically requested this artwork for the new main entrance to campus at Triton Center because he understood that the work is about education and knowledge, not just Western forms of producing and disseminating knowledge. That's a really bold statement.

This is the first commission by Latinx artists in the Stuart Collection's history. It signals a shift in direction: who we're addressing, whose cosmologies we're centering. It's not an either-or; it's an and. We're bringing the legacy into the future, and signaling that it has to be through some bold moves and changes.

Q: You've mentioned intelligence a few times in ways that go beyond the human. Can you say more about that as a through-line in the work?

JBT: Dominant Western understandings have often located intelligence in the individual, in the human being. Yet we can think about intelligence beyond humans, in plants and animals, and through our relationships with materials and the environment, in ways that challenge traditional definitions. As AI prompts us to reconsider intelligence, we need to broaden that conversation to include the non-human.

What RojoNegro's work is doing is connecting that conversation about intelligence to art, to technology, to the past and the future. For me, being able to enter into that discussion, with my own approach, my own way of relating to art and to artists, and a practice that brings contemporary art, public life, social justice and now technology into dialogue through public art, is what feels like the real opportunity of this moment.

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