Jacob Li Rosenberg (BA'23) spotlighted in Berkeley News

“How Art Practice honors student Jacob Li Rosenberg is resurfacing family history to honor his Bay Area roots” by Sarah Fullerton, Berkeley News, May 8, 2023.

Each year, nine seniors in the Department of Art Practice are selected to receive an honors studio for their final semester. Each student receives their own studio space with 24/7 access. The studio space allows students to work on longer-term projects and explore new mediums alongside their cohort. Arts & Humanities had the opportunity to interview three of the nine students in this year's honors studios as they completed their final projects for Professor Stephanie Syjuco's Art + Archive class. Jacob Li Rosenberg is a multi-media artist who is graduating this spring. All photos by Jen Siska.

Q: How did you decide to come to Berkeley and study art practice? Did you always know you wanted to study art?

I am originally from Madison, Wisconsin. Though, both of my parents grew up in the Bay Area. My mom’s family immigrated from China to San Francisco. And my dad's family are Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe who ended up in New York but then came to the Bay Area. I grew up traveling back and forth to the Bay Area to visit family, so it was sort of like a second home to me.

I knew I wanted to apply to Berkeley because of this connection to the Bay Area, but I didn't exactly expect to get in. I originally applied to architecture because I had become aware of Ronald Rael’s work. Actually, the summer before my freshman year, I had the opportunity to drive a cross-country road trip with a few of my high school friends. And we were driving through Colorado and I was able to contact Ronald Rael because I knew he worked in Colorado on his family property. He said we were welcome to come by, and I saw the 3D-printed Adobe structures. And I was just, I was fascinated, because it was architecture, but it was also very much like an art Installation. That was really amazing to me to see someone merging those two practices in a very new and relevant way.

Both my parents are actually artists — my dad does a lot of video and performance work, and ceramics as well. And my mom is a dancer. They were my main art teachers growing up. Art was always something I felt like I really loved, but I was never really sure if I'd pursue art. The only professional artists that I was around, you know, they would talk about how hard it was for them. Right? You know, making it past college and working professionally. So, I came to Berkeley as an architecture major, and I took some art classes my freshman year, and I just fell in love with my art classes right away.