The Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Culture Center, or the Hammer Museum as it is more commonly known, is an art museum in the Westwood district of Los Angeles, California. It is operated by UCLA's School of the Arts and Architecture.

The museum was founded by Armand Hammer, the late CEO of the Occidental Petroleum Corporation, as a venue to exhibit his extensive art collection. Hammer died 15 days after the museum opened to the public in November 1990. Hammer was a Los Angeles County Museum of Art board member for nearly 20 years, beginning in 1968, and during this time had pledged his extensive collection to the museum. Upset by the museum's plans to display his paintings in galleries that are part of the Frances and Armand Hammer Wing but named for other donors, Hammer instead founded his own museum, built adjacent to Occidental's headquarters and designed by architect Edward Larrabee Barnes. At the same time, art collector Norton Simon announced plans to give his prized collection to nearby UCLA, to be housed in a museum two blocks from the Hammer.

Sebastião Salgado (born February 8, 1944) is a Brazilian social documentary photographer and photojournalist.

Salgado was born on February 8, 1944 in Aimorés, in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. After a somewhat itinerant childhood, Salgado initially trained as an economist, earning a master’s degree in economics from the University of São Paulo in Brazil. He began work as an economist for the International Coffee Organization, often traveling to Africa on missions for the World Bank, when he first started seriously taking photographs. He chose to abandon a career as an economist and switched to photography in 1973, working initially on news assignments before veering more towards documentary-type work. Salgado initially worked with the photo agency Sygma and the Paris-based Gamma, but in 1979 he joined the international cooperative of photographers, Magnum Photos. He left Magnum in 1994 and with his wife Lélia Wanick Salgado formed his own agency, Amazonas Images, in Paris to represent his work. He is particularly noted for his social documentary photography of workers in less developed nations. They reside in Paris.

Armand Hammer (May 21, 1898 – December 10, 1990) was an American business tycoon most closely associated with Occidental Petroleum, a company he ran for decades, though he was known as well as for his art collection, his philanthropy, and for his close ties to the Soviet Union.

Thanks to business interests around the world and his "citizen diplomacy," Hammer cultivated a wide network of friends and acquaintances. During his lifetime, some objected to him on the grounds that he had made an illegal campaign contribution to U.S. president Richard Nixon.

He appeared frequently on television, commenting on international relations or agitating for research into a cure for cancer. As of 2008, he has been the subject of five biographies — in 1975 (Considine, authorized biography), 1985 (Bryson, coffee table book), Weinberg 1989, Blumay 1992, and Epstein 1996 — and two autobiographies (1932 and a best seller in 1987). His art collection and his philanthropic projects were the subject of numerous publications as well.

Runa Islam (Bengali: রুনা ইসলাম; born 1970) is a British visual artist and filmmaker of Bangladeshi origin based in London. She was a nominee for the 2008 Turner Prize. She is principally known for her film works.

Runa Islam was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh and moved to London aged three. She attended the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam from 1997 - 1998.

In 1999, Islam exhibited at EASTinternational which was selected by Peter Doig and Roy Arden. She completed a M.Phil at the Royal College of Art, London in 2004.

She was inspired by European auteurs such as Jean-Luc Godard.

In 2005, she participated in the Venice Biennale. Islam’s 2006 16mm film installation Conditional Probability, was the result of a residency at North Westminster Community School, in the final year before its closure. It was first exhibited at the Serpentine Gallery and “imbues even the most mundane dusty corner with a little visual magic”. The other artists included in the project to document the life of the school before it closed were Christian Boltanski, Faisal Abdu'allah and the architect Yona Friedman.

Miranda July (born February 15, 1974) is an American performance artist, writer, actress and film director. Born Miranda Jennifer Grossinger, she works under the surname of "July," which can be traced to a character from a "girlzine" Miranda created with high school friend Johanna Fateman, called Snarla.

Miranda July was born in Barre, Vermont, the daughter of Lindy Hough and Richard Grossinger. Her parents, who taught at Goddard College at the time, are both writers. In 1974 they founded North Atlantic Books, a publisher of alternative health, martial arts, and spiritual titles. Her father was Jewish and her mother was Protestant. July was encouraged to work on her short fiction by author and friend of a friend, Rick Moody.

Miranda grew up in Berkeley, California, where she first began writing plays and staging them at the all-ages club 924 Gilman. She attended The College Preparatory School in Oakland for high school. She later attended UC Santa Cruz, dropping out in her sophomore year. After leaving college, she moved to Portland, Oregon and took up performance art. Her performances were successful; she has been quoted as saying she has not worked a day job since she was 23 years old.