Studio106LA

In 2024, Studio106LA collaborated with the SoC Alumn* community in putting together a series of online exhibitions that showcase projects from the members of the SoC Community.

Since 2020, Studio106LA has orgnized a series of online awareness shows, with #TalkAboutBeirut as as the first one. In the aftermath of a major explosion on August 4, 2020, Studio106LA, together with a group of Lebanese architects, artists, and their international friends, put together a collectively-created awareness webpage. Working with UCLA Architecture and Urban Design Department and UCLA’s Urban Humanities Initiative, they also released a podcast episode from the show. Through a united effort by the project organizers and its audience, the project collected donations and contributed to the recovery work by the Red Cross in Beirut.

The second show addressed the air pollution in Belgrade, Serbia. #BeoAir (2021) was supported by UCLA ArtSci Center. The show brought together Serbian artists worldwide, allowing them to express their feelings toward the changing environment. Under the show's umbrella, Studio106LA partnered with the Serbian non-profit Shuma Peva – an organization that plants trees across the city. As a result of the awareness campaign, Studio106LA raised over 500 USD and enabled Shuma Peva to plant trees as a direct response to the issue. Also, as part of Studio106LA’s collaboration with ArtSci Center, the School of Arts and Architecture at UCLA hosted a panel discussion about the issues of air pollution with invited researchers and participating artists.

Studio106LA also cooperated with an urban activist group, Archcode from Kazakhstan, to put together a show about the role of memory and architecture in revisiting the history of the Soviet repressions of the 1930s. Koktem Shaqyrady was a group show and an awareness show with UCLA

International Institute, urban and architectural historians from Kazakhstan, and artists who relate to the subject matter. As part of the show, a panel discussion was organized by the ArtSci Center, with participation from the activists from Almaty, a UCLA professor in the Department of Slavic Studies, and a writer and curator from Kazakhstan who researched the theme of memory and Stalinist repressions in her work.