Through conceptual works that fuse diverse cultural sensibilities and symbols, spring 2015 Guna S. Mundheim Fellow in the Visual Arts, Sanford Biggers, explores the similarities underlying ostensibly disparate cultural expressions. Incorporating icons and rites ranging from mandalas and slave quilts to hip hop and YouTube music culture, Biggers’s works connect African spiritualism, Buddhist rituals, and African-American urban culture. At the same time, he investigates history, race relations, and the socio-political environment. His works suggest that we transcend divisive social realities through the interconnectedness inherent in our shared affinity for the symbolic and the spiritual. A Los Angeles native working in New York City, Sanford Biggers creates artworks that integrate film, video, installation, sculpture, drawing, original music, and performance.