What would you do in a catastrophic event? Go closer, run away, accept, or deny what is coming? These are all questions that are posed by the MFA artists in the UCSC Art Department Environmental Art and Social Practice Program. Picking Up Shells Amid a Tsunami explores the significance of the trivial, inviting viewers to acknowledge the many pieces that created and remain from devastation. Whether historical, worldly, or personal events, artists Chaelim Lim, Dima Mabsout, Maybee, Nicole Sarmiento, and Tyler Rai invite viewers to slow down and look slowly as small gestures of attention become practices of care with time.

The culminating exhibition of the Environmental Art and Social Practice MFA program at UCSC presents new projects developed through concentrated inquiry over a two-year period and offers a window into the artists' unique long-term research projects that expand beyond the gallery space.