A Welcome from the Directors

We write to you during an especially uncanny time in human history where very little remains “normal” and disorientation has become the default state; where planning is as provisional as it is emancipatory, and the possibility of real, true change collects with nascent energy. In periods of disruption and transition, conventions torque and structures skew, and opportunities percolate. In this light, in this place, 2020 is arguably the most conducive and challenging occasion to envision a new era for the esteemed Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts, which was formally established at the University of Houston in 2003 to cultivate and support interdisciplinary activity amidst the arts. As it grew and matured under the able leadership of founding director Karen Farber, CWMCA became a dynamic nexus for students, artists, academics and thinkers of all kinds to meet and exchange. Across campus and city, the Mitchell Center encouraged and celebrated the intersection of arts in an ever-expanding field – living as a catalyst for performances, exhibitions, symposia, festivals and public art.

We will fortify this inclusive mandate and propel it forward via the multi-faceted vehicle of sustainability – building upon the foundational strengths of CWMCA while providing them new space and resources to flourish. The Mitchell Center will be an open-minded arena where we perforate existing parameters and look for every opportunity to hybridize, intermingle, cross-pollinate, and imagine a future informed by art and design. We will congregate students, curators, professors, performers, artists-in-residence and community organizers to work as interdisciplinary agents and create something bigger and more ambitious than any one individual can alone. At CWMCA, our vision and practice of sustainability considers both natural and constructed environments, imagining the dynamic synergies of agriculture, industry, technological innovation, urbanism, entrepreneurialism and creative human expression. This will be a center where unwieldy ideas are welcome, problems are turned upside down, challenges are faced head on, and art is essential.

We invite you to join us, participate, propose projects, and animate these efforts. CWMCA lives and breathes through the people that circulate through its programs, and embody its aims. It is a center without a singular site, reaching across multiple fields to revel in the migrations, amalgams, and assemblies that ensue. The CWMCA is a proud part of the Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts, and will strive to advance more open-minded and experimental thinking here, as well as connecting the arts to the many areas of study present at UH, from anthropology to zoology.

Thank you sincerely to all those who have already contributed to our pulsing architecture/archive, and hello to all who will continue to build and expand.

Tomorrow begins today.

—Melissa Noble & Steven Matijcio