Born in
Oakland, California, Yasuda is a professor of Public Practice in the Art Department at
University of California, Santa Barbara and previously served as the co-director of the UC Institute for Research in the Arts (UCIRA). She obtained her B.F.A. from
San Jose State University in 1983 and her M.F.A. from the
University of Southern California in 1988. Yasuda has received fellowships and awards from the
National Endowment for the Arts, the
Joan Mitchell Foundation, and the
Anonymous Was a Woman Foundation. Her work has been exhibited at the
New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, the
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C., the Oakland Museum of Art, California and Camerawork Gallery, London. Yasuda has received commissions for public art from the
Metropolitan Transit Authority of Los Angeles as well as the cities of St. Louis, San Jose and Hollywood. Yasuda incorporates a variety of media in her work, including light, which she has used to signify memory or a depiction of one's interior landscape. Her artistic practice and teaching is open and collaborative, often engaging her students directly with communities where the art projects are situated. In 2008 Yasuda established
WORD Magazine, a student-run arts and culture magazine associated with a UCSB class and part of
Isla Vista Arts, as a way to redefine misconceptions of Isla Vista. Following the
2014 Isla Vista killings, Yasuda developed a class for UCSB students called IVOpenLab to facilitate students' active learning within the Isla Vista community through social engagement, research, and participation. ==References==