From April to September, the Visual Arts Center team planned and prepared to bring the upcoming exhibitions to life. On Friday, the season will begin with an artist-led tour of the Fall 2024 exhibitions. 

The exhibitions include “Una Luz: Photography Under Confinement in Venezuela”, a photographic archive featuring the work of incarcerated Venezuelans, and “IT IS A GOOD PROJECT AND SHOULD BE BUILT,” a video installation examining the proposed construction of storm surge infrastructure on the Texas Gulf Coast. The tour lasts from 4-5 p.m., followed by an opening reception. Located in the Art Building at UT, the VAC is free and open to the public. Throughout the fall, the VAC will be open Tuesday through Saturday from noon to 5 p.m. with guided and self-guided tours, public events and more. 

“The Visual Arts Center platforms some of the most challenging ideas and topics that are being discussed in classrooms, but also with friends over dinner and in headlines,” said VAC director Max Fields. 

Curated by Violette Bule, Maysa Martins and Michel Otayek, the Una Luz exhibition presents photographs taken by the inmates of five Venezuelan penitentiaries, where Bule held photography workshops from 2010 to 2012. 

“Photography once saved me,” Bule said. “I was a little bit lost when I was young, and once I learned photography as a medium of expression, I reconnected with myself … I wanted to offer this opportunity to others.” 

Michel Otayek, an art historian who collaborated on the project, said he hopes the exhibition opens a dialogue about criminal justice. 

“I hope (the exhibition) triggers something unexpected in the viewer, something (that) allows them to think about carceral spaces in a different way than we’re all used to,” Otayek said. 

The second exhibition, “IT IS A GOOD PROJECT AND SHOULD BE BUILT,” is a three-channel video installation created by Fred Schmidt-Arenales. Critically examining the efforts to implement the Texas Coastal Barrier Project, or “Ike Dike,” the film begins with interviews and documentary footage. Then, it transforms into a dreamlike musical sequence, culminating on the beach where the Ike Dike would begin. 

“I hope that people take away a sense of curious engagement with systems and mechanisms and the world around them,” Schmidt-Arenales said. “I hope the film can encourage people to look at the ways that infrastructure, this kind of nebulous thing, actually impacts their lives.” 

In addition to Bule’s and Schmidt-Arenales’ exhibitions, Retracing the Rubicon explores grief and communal healing. The exhibition features the work of 10 artists in the UT community, curated by undergraduate students Zahra Martinez, Fionayuko Forbes and Farah Narejo. It incorporates painting, printmaking, photography, video and sculpture. 

Throughout the fall, the VAC will present public programs featuring artists and experts from diverse fields. The VAC also holds COMMONS, a space where students, faculty, staff and the greater Austin community can work, engage and relax. Fields said community members can also use the space to host an event, such as a film screening, performance or panel discussion. 

“(The VAC has) rich exhibitions and events that I think people will feel challenged by, will delight in, feel comforted, feel uncomfortable, feel just that they’re not alone in the world,” said Melissa Fandos, the assistant curator of the VAC.