Urban Planning Professor Karen Umemoto has been named a recipient of the 2021 Chancellor’s Arts Initiative, a program to advance arts-related research that is timely, relevant and original and that increases public awareness of the arts at UCLA. Umemoto, director of UCLA’s Asian American Studies Center, is one of 12 faculty members to receive a grant under the $150,000 program sponsored by the Chancellor’s Council on the Arts and the Office for Research and Creative Activities. Priority was given to projects that contribute to UCLA’s larger commitments to sustainability, anti-racism, equity, diversity and inclusion. Amid a rise in anti-Asian violence in America, the Asian American Studies Center in collaboration with the Asia Pacific Center will spearhead a multimedia and multiperforming arts event commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Los Angeles Chinese Massacre of 1871, which involved the lynching of 19 Chinese immigrants. In addition to spoken narrative based on an original script, the project will feature body movement artists and a soundscape that draws from culturally diverse acoustic instruments and computer-generated sounds. This community engagement piece will include a pre-performance workshop and a post-event reception with speakers, performers and invited guests sharing historical accounts of racist violence against Asians in Los Angeles and linking the experiences of the past to the present. The Chancellor’s Council on the Arts also announced the launch of GO ARTS UCLA, an online platform that brings together the full array of UCLA arts and humanities events and research in one central location, underscoring the role of the arts at the university and within Los Angeles’ cultural ecosystem.