Visiting Artists 2024–25

Art is essential. Art is consequential.

Stanford’s visiting artist programs encourage experimentation, exploration, and education in interdisciplinary arts research and practice. During the 2024–25 academic year, Stanford welcomes the following acclaimed artists for deep campus engagements:

Janani Balasubramanian, Stanford ‘12, practices across immersive media, conceptual art, and literary work, often in long-term collaborations with scientists, inviting deeper connections with nonhuman worlds while nurturing social imagination for care, complexity, and play. Hosted by the Institute for Diversity in the Arts, Office of the Vice President for the Arts, and the Stanford Arts Institute, Balasubramanian is teaching an immersive design course, leading professional development workshops, and developing a medical research study about the therapeutic effects of their artwork.

Mark Baugh-Sasaki, MFA ’17, is a sculptor and installation artist whose practice focuses on our connection to place through embedded narratives in both the built and the natural landscape. Hosted by the Doerr School of Sustainability and the Office of the Vice President for the Arts, Baugh-Sasaki is collaborating with an ocean research scientist and developing a new public artwork relating to humans’ impact on the environment.

Patty Chang is a Los Angeles based artist and educator who uses performance, video, installation, and narrative forms when considering identity, gender, transnationalism, colonial legacies, the environment, large-scale infrastructural projects, and impacted subjectivities. Hosted by the Department of Art & Art History and the Oceans Department with funding from the Stanford Visiting Artist Fund in Honor of Roberta Bowman Denning, Chang is engaging with students, conducting research with Oceans faculty, and screening work at the Cantor Arts Center.

Meklit Hadero is an Ethio-American vocalist, singer-songwriter, and composer, making music that sways between cultures and continents. Hosted by the Institute for Diversity in the Arts and the Stanford Institute for Advancing Just Societies, Hadero is teaching a course on the powerful intersection of migration, songwriting, and multi-platform storytelling.

Arnold J. Kemp, MFA ‘05, is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, and educator whose work is at once poetically lyrical and culturally informed. His work serves as a reminder of the current socio-political landscape and its reverberations in the Black psyche. Hosted by the Department of Art & Art History as part of the Holt Visiting Artist Program, Kemp is presenting work in the Coulter Gallery and teaching a course on experimental strategies in drawing, collaboration, and collage.

Scarlett Kim is a creative producer, director, and innovation leader making unclassifiable experiences at the intersection of live performance and immersive technology. Hosted by the Office of the Vice President for the Arts and Stanford Live as part of the RSC Interdisciplinary Fellowship program, Kim is conducting research and developing new work, engaging students in the process.

Rachel Kushner is the author of novels The Mars Room, The Flamethrowers, and Telex from Cuba. Her new novel, Creation Lake, was published in September of 2024. Hosted by the Creative Writing Program as part of the Stein Visiting Writer program, Kushner is teaching a course on the sacred art of stealing from the world around you—from poems, novels, movies, songs, advertisements, horoscopes, graffiti, and other unexpected places.

L. Lamar Wilson’s cross-genre work centers the voices and experiences of black, brown, and indigenous folk thriving in the rural South despite white nationalist terror. Hosted by the Creative Writing Program as part of the Mohr Visiting Poet program, Wilson is teaching a course exploring how writers’ sense of place intersects with their narrative, lyrical, and syntactical choices as they envision peace during times of war and social unrest.

Contact: T +1 (650) 736 4087 / stanfordarts [​at​] stanford.edu.

*Image above: Clockwise from left: Meklit Hadero courtesy of the artist; L. Lamar Wilson courtesy of Rachel Eliza Griffiths; Janani Balasubramanian courtesy of the artist; Mark Baugh-Sasaki courtesy of Aubrie Pick; Rachel Kushner courtesy of the artist; Arnold J. Kemp courtesy of the artist; Patty Chang courtesy of Amy Sadao; Scarlett Kim courtesy of the artist.