Artist Profile

Born and raised in California, Kim Yasuda is a visual artist whose installations and public projects investigate the links between identity and place within the contemporary urban landscape.  The artist is the recipient of visual arts fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, US/Japan Foundation, Eliza M. Howard Foundation, Art Matters, Joan Mitchell Foundation, and the Anonymous Was a Woman Foundation.  Yasuda has been commissioned for public projects throughout California, including the Vermont Station for the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Los Angeles and a commemorative work for the City of San Jose.  As a professor of Spatial Studies in the Art Department at University of California, Santa Barbara, Yasuda has sought to develop projects that forge partnerships between UCSB and the community through the use of her public art research. In 2006, Yasuda and her undergraduate art students were awarded a public commission for Villa Cesar Chavez, a 52-unit, seasonal farm-worker housing complex in Oxnard, California. With Yasuda’s assistance, students designed the public art components including a plaza, community center, and streetscape.  The artist is currently working with her students to modify two shipping containers into mobile art studios.  Yasuda is also the co-director of the UC Institute for Research in the Arts (UCIRA).