OCMA's 2025 Biennial Unleashes Coming-of-Age Chaos and Culture
- Lillian Dunn
- Jul 9, 2025
- 9 min read
Updated: Jul 11, 2025
Experienced and emerging curators at Orange County Museum of Art come together to explore youth, identity, and creative expression in the museum’s 2025 California Biennial.
The Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA) launched its California Biennial, “Desperate, Scared, But Social” on June 21, highlighting the confusing whirlwind experience of late adolescence and early adulthood through personal archives, interactive installations, and a teenage girl’s bedroom approach to intimacy. The exhibit opened on a June Saturday with an block party featuring food, beverages, and live performances from riot grrrl bands Emily’s Sassy Lime and The Linda Lindas, including a guest appearance from Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna. The exhibit will continue through Jan. 4.
Building a Biennial
The California Biennial is a long-running tradition at OCMA, with the first one starting in 1984, when the museum was known as the Newport Harbor Art Museum.
The 2022 biennial, “Pacific Gold,” which ran in tandem with the opening of OCMA’s new, $94.5 million building, utilized California-based curators. The curatorial team for this year’s biennial – OCMA’s chief curator Courtenay Finn, former curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art Christopher Y. Lew and associate curator Lauren Leving – are not native Californians. Finn, who previously worked with Chicago-based Leving in Cleveland, was excited about inviting Leving to work on the project. Lew is based in New York, and the three of them explored California together, learning about artistic practice throughout the state as people who are not native to California.
Finn, Leving and Lew began researching for the biennial without any preconceived notions about what the exhibition would come to be. With open minds, they tried to understand what artists wanted to make. They began learning about artists collaborating with their adolescent children and thinking back on work they made in their own teenage years during studio visits. Finn, Leving and Lew realized this was a theme they could lean into. During one of their road trips together, they devised the idea of putting together a young curators program.
Inspired by the Gardena High School Art Collection, the Orange County Young Curators (OCYC) after-school program was developed in 2024 to bring young creative people together in a space that lifts the ideas and experiences of the youth and encourages their artistic development. The group meets biweekly at OCMA, and the biennial includes 15 paintings from the Garden High School Art Collection, ranging from 1919 to 1956.
SIDEBAR: What is the Gardena High School Art Collection?
“The Gardena High School Art Collection is widely acknowledged as one of the outstanding collections of California Impressionism in the country. What began in 1919 as a lesson in art appreciation for the high school’s graduating senior class matured into an exceptional permanent collection, an art association, and a cherished community tradition. The collection enriched the lives of an entire community over three decades, leaving a tangible legacy of the community’s ideals.
“From 1919 to 1956 each graduating class would purchase a work of art as a parting gift to the student body. ‘The exercise in collecting and organizing an art exhibition exposed the students and the wider community to lessons in art appreciation, as well as in good citizenship, collaboration and debate. The collection still ties generations of students and community members together in Gardena,’ said Eiko Kamiya Moriyama, an alumna of the high school and a founding board member of the GHS Art Collection, a nonprofit organization created in 2010 to protect and preserve the collection. However, since the mid-1950s, the collection has been in storage and unavailable for viewing by the public in its entirety, with many of the paintings and frames in need of restoration.”
Learn more about The Gardena High School Art Collection at ghsac.org
Source: The GHS Art Collection
After putting together the OCYC, Finn, Leving, and Lew quickly saw how they could create a coherent theme for an entire biennial surrounding coming-of-age perspectives. Named after O.C. punk band Emily’s Sassy Lime’s 1995 album by the same name, “Desperate, Scared, But Social” leans into the do-it-yourself ideology of the ‘90s with interactive zines like Shotgun Seamstress and Jigsaw, marked-up scraps of paper and show flyers, button collections, gum wrappers and other teenage-coded ephemera.
What You’ll See
“Much of the art and ephemera in the exhibition were either original works we kept from our teenage years or more recently made objects based on things we saw – everyday objects from our youth. The interior culture in our homes involved a lot of repurposing of consumer packaging, either as containers for other things or as quasi ‘artworks’ in and of themselves,” said Amy Yao of Emily’s Sassy Lime. “The artwork in this show reflects that attitude toward what could otherwise be considered post-consumer trash. ‘Desperate, Scared, but Social’ adequately describes the survivalist mentality one must have to get through life.”
Photographer Deanna Templeton has been documenting girlhood for years. Her collection “What She Said” opens the exhibit with striking street photography of young girls and femme-identifying people against a striking pink wall. Their faces and bodies are the first thing museum-goers see when they enter the exhibit, kickstarting the themes of punk subculture, identity and coming-of-age with ice cream cones, fur coats, eyeliner, T-shirt slogans and crooked bangs.
“Well, I played around on Photoshop using different layers to see how the flow would go,” Templeton said. “What felt right. How to separate the few color images I had, to space them out. Even though I had everything pretty mapped out at home, once it was time to install, I had to be ready for missed calculations on sizes of the works or the walls. I feel like it’s when you are shooting a photo, it’s all intuitive.”
The young women Templeton photographs remind her of herself at their age, or how she wished she had been. Beside some of the pictures, which are often taken straight on, are diary entries from Templeton’s own journals, punk flyers and zine cutouts from the 1980s.
Beside a photograph of a woman’s torso that reads “Feed Me” is a framed series of Templeton’s diary entries. One from Feb. 16, 1987 reads, “I feel so ugly! I know I’m ugly. My face has acne all over it, not just the zits but scabs and red spots all over my face too, there are so many of them, I’m so god damn ugly. I have fat thighs and hips too, I tried dieting but I binged this weekend on everything chocolate, I couldn’t say no to anything, I’m so weak and ugly, my face is so ugly I hate look’n at it!!”
PHOTOS 1 & 2: The "Feed Me" photo and accompanying diary entry. Photos by Lillian Dunn, Culture OC. PHOTO 3: Deanna Templeton's "What She Said" installation. Photo courtesy of OCMA/Yubo Dong
In juxtaposing her own words with other women’s bodies, scars and faces, Templeton is able to unearth a sense of shared experience between women and speak to what many are thinking but do not say. Finn, Leving and Lew worked to pull together an exhibition that allows the audience to relate while recognizing the complexity of growing up.
“We were noticing in different ways all throughout the state how different people were exploring these identities and exploring themselves, but also how it extends outwards to become relatable to other people, because many people experience the turbulence of adolescence, but also the joy of adolescence,” Leving said.
Templeton’s work naturally flows into the Juvenilia gallery, showcasing early works from established California artists. Author and filmmaker Miranda July’s work is set up at a listening station with headphones where museum-goers can sit and watch two of her engrossing performance art pieces from 1997. This gallery also includes early work from artists like Seth Bogart, Laura Owens and Joey Terrill in the form of zines, ceramics, music and drawings.
“The layout also became a way for us to take audiences on this journey through time and through adolescence,” Leving said. “A lot of the artists are also musicians, like Emily’s Sassy Lime and The Linda Lindas, and it is also really important in the way that we connect material to memory. So the relationship of all of these interdisciplinary mediums makes it more accessible and more approachable to meet our audiences where they’re at by having tangible reading materials to catch a glimpse into maybe what Wendy Yao, who put the reading library together, (felt was) important to her during that time.”
Emily’s Sassy Lime and other artists from the biennial, including Bogart and Brontez Purnell, have been friends for decades. They discovered one another through independent zines, snail mail music and small record stores. Wendy emphasizes the use of physical media and objects in the current political climate, a way of connecting “through (a) direct and unmonitored exchange.”
PHOTO
PHOTO 1: The entrance to the "Desperate Scared But Social" exhibit. PHOTO 2: Emily's Sassy Lime ephemera is included as an installation as a part of the biennial. PHOTO 3 & 4: Notes and videos are a part of the Emily's Sassy Lime installation. PHOTO 5 & 6: Some of the other galleries included in the "Desperate Scared But Social" exhibit. Photos courtesy of OCMA/Yubo Dong
Bringing Young and Old Together
At OCMA’s free block party on the opening evening of the biennial, which was intentionally held on a weekend earlier in the day to encourage families to come and gather together, Emily’s Sassy Lime performed for the first time in 25 years. They were followed by current Los Angeles punk band The Linda Lindas. Audience members, old and young, bobbed their heads and jumped around to songs, new and old. To close out the show, The Linda Lindas kicked off the classic opening to Bikini Kill’s “Rebel Girl” before calling Hanna up to the stage to sing along with them.
After the show, teenagers approached Emily Ryan of Emily’s Sassy Lime to tell her about their own bands, art and experiences. Many artists with work featured in the biennial were also there to witness the opening day festivities and the musical fusion of generations, including July and Templeton.
“I loved watching people take their time in my room, actually reading the texts or looking and laughing at the vitrines with some of my ephemera. I met a few of the artists and we were able to talk about how much we had in common growing up, even though we grew up in different cities,” Templeton said. “It really was a wonderful day, and then the icing on the cake was watching Kathleen Hanna jump on stage to sing ‘Rebel Girl’ with The Linda Lindas. I screamed, I cried, I danced. Can’t get much better than that.”
PHOTO 1: Miranda July performing in 1997. Photo courtesy of Miranda July. PHOTO 2: A press photo of The Linda Lindas. Photo courtesy of OCMA/Jessie Cowan. PHOTO 3 & 4: Artifacts from The Linda Linda's exhibit. Photos courtesy of OCMA/Yubo Dong
An ‘Act of Resistance’
Long known in the past for its conservative leanings, Orange County is now home to exhibits like “Desperate, Scared, But Social,” which highlights work by young, queer, trans, and BIPOC artists. The exhibit comes at a time when, nationally, legislation and rhetoric aimed at restricting LGBTQ+ expression and education have drawn criticism from civil rights groups and arts advocates.
“We believe in the feminist adages that the personal is political, and joy is an act of resistance,” Wendy said. “Making and sharing zines or songs can seem like a small act, but they connect us, particularly during difficult times, hopefully helping more people feel seen and heard.”
All three women from Emily’s Sassy Lime are from immigrant families. Ryan’s mother was a Vietnamese refugee who sang in a band called Viễn Du (also known as The Traveler) with her brothers and brother-in-law. Once the band came to the United States, caretaking and working became a bigger priority than music. Ryan recognizes how lucky she and her fellow band members are to have been able to pursue their dreams. She dedicates this exhibit to the immigrants who weren’t able to do the same.
“This show, in light of everything that is going on that is so devastating for so many communities, we wanted to really point to something that could feel positive about the future in this beyond difficult time,” Lew said. “I also think that thinking about punk culture in general, and the kind of DIY ethos to it is something that is super important as a kind of act of resistance for today.”
The Linda Lindas are a diverse outfit too, composed of Asian and Latinx members. The rock band has developed quite a following, and has performed at the Hollywood Bowl, Coachella, on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” and on movie soundtracks. They start a European tour in August.
Throughout the biennial, OCMA will be hosting public tours, drawing workshops, bimonthly Art & Play activities for kids, monthly Art Happy Hour & Pop-Up Tours with cocktails and mocktails inspired by the artwork, and monthly talks given by featured artists, including Templeton, Heesoo Kwon, Griselda Ross and Wendy Yao.
2025 California Biennial
Where: Orange County Museum of Art, 3333 Avenue of the Arts, Costa Mesa
When: June 2-Jan. 4, 2026
Cost: Free
Information: (714) 780-2130, ocma.art
