"Second Nature: Photography in the Age of the Anthropocene" February 26 - August 3, 2025

Just over 20 years ago, scientists proposed the term Anthropocene to denote a new geological epoch marked by human activity. Comprised of 44 international photo-based artists, "Second Nature: Photography in the Age of the Anthropocene" explores the complexities of this proposed new age: vanishing ice, rising waters, and increasing resource extraction, as well as the painful legacies of colonialism, forced climate migration, and socio-environmental trauma. The exhibition proposes that the Anthropocene is not one singular narrative, but rather a complex web of relationships between and among humanity, industry, and ecology—the depths and effects of which are continually being discovered.

"Handle with Care" March 19 - September 14, 2025

Handle with Care focuses on a typically overlooked aspect of design: the handle. How do handles invite us into the world of objects—their look and feel,their orientation, their weight? The exhibition shuttles between the universal and the particular, cutting across traditional divisions of geography, chronology, and object classifications, engaging a broad swath of the Cantor's historical collection in new, imaginative ways.

"Tiffany Sia: No Place" April 9 - August 24, 2025

Two landscape films relate a story of exile in this single-gallery exhibition. These twinned works convey the escape of artist Tiffany Sia’s family from Cold War-era Shanghai to Hong Kong and vivify what Sia refers to as “no place,” locales made spectral through violence and forgetting.

"A Child Already Knows" is recounted as if from the perspective of Sia’s father as a child of nine. Between the images––clips drawn from Mao-era cartoons, intertitles, and newsreel––the work recreates a necessarily fragmented and flickering memory. The three-channel video "Journey From North to South" (2024) traces a road trip that begins in New York and ends in Mississippi, attempting a reenactment of a southward exile using another landscape as proxy. The camera barely rests, capturing 22 hours of passing highways.

Images:

Anastasia Samoylova (Born in Moscow, Russia, 1984), Pink Sidewalk from the series FloodZone, 2017. Pigment print on paper, artist’s proof 1; 40 x 32 inches. Courtesy of the artist. © Anastasia Samoylova

Salviati & Co., Fish Ewer, 1890–1913. Blown glass. Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University, Gift of Erede Dr. A. Salviati & Co., JLS.11280

Tiffany Sia, A Child Already Knows, 2024. Video, 33 min. Courtesy the artist and Felix Gaudlitz, Vienna; and Maxwell Graham, New York

Serving the Stanford campus, the Bay Area community, and visitors from around the world, the Cantor Arts Center provides an outstanding cultural experience for visitors of all ages. Founded when the university opened in 1891, the historic museum was expanded and renamed in 1999 for lead donors Iris and B. Gerald Cantor. The Cantor’s collection spans 5,000 years and includes more than 41,000 works of art from around the globe. The Cantor is an established resource for teaching and research on campus. Free admission, tours, lectures, and family activities make the Cantor one of the most visited university art museums in the country.

The Cantor Arts Center has free admission. Hours are W&F: 11AM-6PM, Th: 11AM-8PM, Sat&Sun: 10AM-5PM. Parking on the weekend is free.