+ Based in the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center of the University of California Santa Barbara, Isla Vista Arts promotes the arts as a catalyst for social growth and change in the neighboring Isla Vista community. IV Arts approaches Isla Vista as an asset to the UCSB campus and the surrounding Santa Barbara and Goleta community. Isla Vista has an exciting energy typical of densely populated urban environments, the tolerance for experimentation and innovation that often inspires and liberates artists, and an unrivaled spectacular natural beauty.

+ Through our website, promotions, and programming, IV Arts brings coherence and visibility to disparate arts initiatives and aims to enhance the downtown Embarcadero loop as a vibrant civic space.

+ IV Arts supports projects that bring together student-conceived arts initiatives with concrete, demonstrable university support to buttress and amplify those initiatives.

+ IV Arts connects spaces of living and learning, so students experience cultural stimulation throughout the day, not just while in the classroom.

+ Finally, IV Arts is committed to disrupting segregation. Isla Vista has a history of certain undeniable and undesirable dysfunctions. IV Arts works on the assumption that many of IV’s “problems” can be traced to a habitual age, ethnic, and class segregation. We believe that nothing breaks through these barriers like bringing all community members together through the arts.

+ IV Arts aims to promote a habit of cultural attendance. In order to accomplish this, we believe arts programming needs to be presented and promoted habitually. IV Arts co-sponsors weekly arts programming, such as Magic Lantern Films, IV LIVE and IMPROVABILITY as well as on-going projects like Shakespeare in the Park, WORD: Isla Vista Arts & Culture Magazine, Nuestra Voz, and The Box.

+ Isla Vista Arts is affiliated with Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life, a national consortium of colleges, universities, and cultural institutions dedicated to supporting the civic work of university artists, humanists, and designers.