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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260410T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260607T170000
DTSTAMP:20260427T062935
CREATED:20260324T192312Z
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SUMMARY:Visualizing Abolition Film Program: Beyond Access
DESCRIPTION:Curated by Visualizing Abolition Visiting Faculty Pooja Rangan \n\n\n\nRun time: 49 minutes \n\n\n\nPrisons deny and censor the access of those trapped inside them—to information\, to intimacy\, to community\, to meaningful work\, to nourishment of all kinds\, and perhaps most cruelly\, to care. This program assembles a series of films\, including works by filmmakers incarcerated in California as well as others without that lived experience. Together\, these works confront the debilitating impacts of these restrictions and reveal how the disabling logic of the prison is extended to other institutional spaces (the hospital\, the university)\, turning access into a scarce commodity by enclosing what should be held in common. Questioning the carceral and state-sponsored productions of disability and accessibility\, the short films together reveal the courage of people working despite limitations to produce collective access for one another\, described simply and beautifully by disability justice activist Leah-Lakshmi Piepzna Samarasinha as “revolutionary love without charity.”  \n\n\n\nThanh TranDying in Prison\, 2022HD Video (color\, sound)\, 3 minutesCourtesy of the artist \n\n\n\nCarolyn LazardPre-Existing Condition\, 2019HD video (color\, sound)\, 6 minutesCourtesy of the artist and Trautwein Herleth3 \n\n\n\nAnthony AlejandrezAnother Rainy Day\, 2023Phone video (color\, sound)\, 3 minutesCourtesy of the artist \n\n\n\nJordan LordAfter…After… (Access)\, 2018HD Video (color\, sound)\, 16 minutesCourtesy of the artist \n\n\n\nRahsaan “New York” ThomasFriendly Signs\, 2023Video (color\, sound) 21 minutesCourtesy of Tommy Wickerd\, Empowerment Ave & System Impact Media \n\n\n\nImage credit: Carolyn Lazard\, Pre-Existing Condition (still). ID: [A scanned document of a table of information pertaining to medical experiments conducted in a prison in 1963. The scan is an inverted image: white\, type-written text on a black background speckled with white dots and a white margin on the left side of the frame. The information presented includes the dates of these experiments\, the University of Pennsylvania doctors who facilitated them\, the number of inmates who participated in the experiments\, and the amount that inmates were paid\, ranging from one to fifteen dollars per study. Brief descriptions of each test is listed\, including “To obtain data on tolerance of Myagen\,” “To determine effectiveness of drug\, Grisactin” and “To determine toxicity of drug\, Wy-713”. At the bottom of the frame is a yellow subtitle\, “they classify people.”]
URL:https://ias.ucsc.edu/event/beyond-access/
LOCATION:Institute of the Arts and Sciences\, 100 Panetta Avenue\, Santa Cruz\, California\, 95060\, United States
CATEGORIES:Screenings,Visualizing Abolition
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260501T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260501T190000
DTSTAMP:20260427T062935
CREATED:20260420T190406Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260420T213708Z
UID:11032-1777654800-1777662000@ias.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:May First Friday
DESCRIPTION:Join us for an after-hours viewing and student-led tours of our exhibitions.
URL:https://ias.ucsc.edu/event/may-first-friday/
LOCATION:Institute of the Arts and Sciences\, 100 Panetta Avenue\, Santa Cruz\, California\, 95060\, United States
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260502T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260502T153000
DTSTAMP:20260427T062935
CREATED:20260409T172342Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260414T190634Z
UID:10976-1777730400-1777735800@ias.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:In Conversation: Sister Warriors
DESCRIPTION:Join us to learn about the important work of Sister Warriors Freedom Coalition\, a group of women and gender expansive folks who have been incarcerated and are building a movement to support each other\, shift power\, and lead systems and policy change. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNiki Martinez is a leading social justice advocate and organizer dedicated to ending mass incarceration and dismantling systemic injustices and the criminalization of women\, gender expansive and trans people. Since her release in 2019\, she has mentored countless individuals\, been a leader in the Credible Messenger movement\, while also working on key propositions and policies and continuing to advocate for folks inside of the women’s facilities. Currently\, Niki serves as the Administrative and Organizing Director of Sister Warriors Freedom Coalition and continues to build Sister Warriors Chapters throughout the state. While incarcerated\, she co-founded a youth-centered advocacy organization and holds certifications in trauma-informed care\, relapse prevention\, and restorative justice. Charged as an adult at 17 and sentenced to 45 years to life\, Niki served 25 consecutive years inside the carceral system—experiences that drive her commitment to healing\, justice and the continued fight against systemic gender-based violence and ending mass incarceration. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSusan Bustamente is a part of the California Coalition for Women Prisoners and an advocate for ending Life Without Parole. Susan was sentenced to Life Without Parole (LWOP) and served 31 years. While incarcerated she co-founded CWAA\, a battered women’s group\, and was also a dog trainer and a member of the Veteran’s group Happy Hats. In 2018\, Susan was the first person with an LWOP sentence to be released via a sentence commutation. Since her release\, Susan continues to give back to her community by visiting and supporting incarcerated women and fighting for the end of LWOP through the Felony Murder Elimination project. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nElizabeth Lozano is a Latina artist who was born in Harbor City\, CA and currently resides in Riverside\, CA. In 2012 Elizabeth received her A.A. in Behavioral and Social Science with Honors from Feather River College. Elizabeth’s art was first exhibited in Central California Women’s Facility’s visiting store\, the facility where she resided for 30 years serving a sentence of Juvenile Life without Parole. In 2024 the facility requested Elizabeth paint affirmations on the sidewalks and other spaces to uplift the community. Elizabeth has participated in several exhibitions and projects including: Return to Sender: Prison as Censorship\, EFA Gallery NY\, (2023); The Only Door I Can Open: Women Exposing Prison Through Art and Poetry\, Museum of the African Diaspora\, CA (2023); Work Assignments: Forced Prison Labor in the Land of the Free\, several Bay Area locations(2023 & 2024); and the Involuntary Servitude Digital Billboard campaign for Legal Services for Prisoners with Children\, California\,(2024) \n\n\n\nCurrently Elizabeth works for The Institute of the Arts and Sciences as a Prison Education Advisor where she develops art workshops and education programs for the women prisons in California and formerly incarcerated individuals\, supports the reentry transition back to the community and aids in the development and promotion of art exhibitions and outreach programs. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nJulissa O. Muñiz\, PhD is an assistant professor of education in the School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California\, Los Angeles. Broadly\, her scholarship examines how people and communities of color –specifically Latinx and Black communities– navigate\, negotiate\, and resist racialized organizations and systems of power such as the education\, criminal legal\, and juvenile legal systems. More specifically\, Dr. Muñiz examines the conditions that both enable and constrain teaching\, learning\, and identity development in carceral contexts\, with an interest in better understanding how youth\, girls\, women\, and gender expansive individuals live and learn while confined. Importantly\, her work uplifts the various ways individuals are always co-creating fugitive liberatory learning environments for themselves and others in spite of the carceral institutions they exist in. Most recently\, Muñiz was an assistant professor of psychology with affiliation in education and the Visualizing Abolition Program at UC Santa Cruz. \n\n\n\nDr. Muñiz earned her Ed.M. in prevention science and practice from the Harvard Graduate School of Education; her M.A. in human development and social policy from Northwestern University; and her B.A. in ethnic studies from UC Berkeley. Her training and research have been generously supported by the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans\, Spencer Foundation and the National Academy of Education\, Social Science Research Council\, and the University of Texas at Austin’s Division of Diversity and Community Engagement. Dr. Muñiz is a first-generation borderlands scholar from San Ysidro\, California. In 2021\, she founded the San Ysidro Rising Scholar Award\, a scholarship and mentorship program that supports first-generation college students from her alma mater\, San Ysidro High School. Before entering graduate school\, Muñiz was a middle school academic counselor for TRIO Talent Search in Oakland\, California\, and a GED co-instructor for the Adult Peer Education Project at San Quentin State Prison. \n\n\n\n\n\nThis event is organized in conjunction with the exhibition Everything is Going Right and as part of Visualizing Abolition\, an arts-based initiative that reaches across prison borders to contribute to the unfolding collective story and alternative imagining underway to create a future free of prisons.
URL:https://ias.ucsc.edu/event/in-conversation-sister-warriors/
LOCATION:Institute of the Arts and Sciences\, 100 Panetta Avenue\, Santa Cruz\, California\, 95060\, United States
CATEGORIES:Visualizing Abolition
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ias.ucsc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-07-at-10.40.46-AM.jpeg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260507T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260507T193000
DTSTAMP:20260427T062935
CREATED:20260331T225830Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260402T204536Z
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SUMMARY:Rasanblaj as Spirit Turn: Gina Athena Ulysse in Conversation with Jennifer González
DESCRIPTION:Please join us for a conversation between Gina Athena Ulysse and Jennifer González\, discussing Ulysse’s solo exhibition Redwoods Rasanblaj: Origins & Disentanglements. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nGina Athena Ulysse (b 1966) Haiti/United States is an artist-scholar\, Professor of Humanities and Founding Director of the Rasanblaj Praxis Project Lab (RPPL) at the University of California\, Santa Cruz. Concerned with the visceral in the structural\, her questions engage geopolitics\, historical representations\, aesthetics and the spiritual in the dailiness of Black diasporic conditions. In the last two decades\, her rasanblaj approach (the gathering of ideas\, things\, people\, and spirits) to her multidisciplinary art and writing practice entails ongoing crossings and dialogues in the arts\, humanities\, and social sciences. She has performed at The British Museum\, the Brooklyn Museum\, Cabaret Voltaire\, Gorki Theatre\, House of World Cultures\, LaMaMa\, Marcus Garvey Liberty Hall\, MoMA Salon\, among other venues. She has held residencies at the University of Buffalo\, Oregon State\, University of Zurich\, as well as the Bogliasco Foundation Study Center in Italy. In 2020\, she was an invited artist to the Biennale of Sydney. In 2024\, she was invited to participate in the Biennale de Dakar. She is a 2025 MacDowell fellow. Her major publications include the forthcoming A Year and A Day. Leonore Mau and Haiti (Oct 2025\, editor with Dora Imhoff and U5)\, a polyphonic inquiry into the photographs Leonore Mau (1916-2013) took in Haiti during the 1970s; Why Haiti Needs New Narratives: A Post-Quake Chronicle (2015); Because When God is Too Busy: Haiti\, me & THE WORLD (2017) – long-listed for the 2017 PEN Open Book Award and recipient of the 2018 Best Poetry Connecticut Center for the Book Award – and  A Call to Rasanblaj: Black Feminist Futures and Ethnographic Aesthetics(2023). She was the invited editor of e-misferica’s Caribbean Rasanblaj (2015)\, the Hemispheric Institute’s Journal for Performance and Politics. Her visual art has appeared on the covers of Feminist Formations\, Feminist Studies\, Frontiers\, and Meridians Journals. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nJennifer Gonzalez\n\n\n\n\n\nJennifer González writes about contemporary art with an emphasis on installation\, digital and activist art. She is interested in understanding the strategic use of space (exhibition space\, public space\, virtual space) by contemporary artists and by cultural institutions such as museums. More specifically\, she has focused on the representation of the human body and its relation to discourses of race and gender. González has received fellowships from the Ford Foundation\, the American Association of University Women\, and the American Council of Learned Societies. Her book Subject to Display: Reframing Race in Contemporary Installation Art was a finalist for the Charles Rufus Morey Book Award. She has published articles in numerous scholarly and art publications such as Journal of Visual Culture\, Frieze\, Bomb\, Diacritics\, Archives of American Art Journal\, Camera Obscura\, Open Space and Art Journal. Her second book\, Pepon Osorio\, received an International Latino Book Award. She served as chief editor of Chicano and Chicana Art: A Critical Anthology which was listed among the best art books of the decade by ArtNews in 2020. González also writes numerous exhibition catalog essays\, most recently for the exhibitions Diego Rivera’s America (2022)\, Amalia Mesa Bains: Archeology of Memory (2023)\, and Isaac Julien: I Dream a World (2025). She has lectured extensively at universities and art museums nationally and internationally and teaches regularly at the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program\, New York.
URL:https://ias.ucsc.edu/event/rasanblaj-as-spirit-turn/
LOCATION:Institute of the Arts and Sciences\, 100 Panetta Avenue\, Santa Cruz\, California\, 95060\, United States
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://ias.ucsc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Gina-and-JAG-1.png
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260513T093000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260513T170000
DTSTAMP:20260427T062935
CREATED:20260217T193201Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260422T170124Z
UID:10854-1778664600-1778691600@ias.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:Carceral Media Ecologies—and How to Break Them
DESCRIPTION:Organized by Pooja Rangan\, Visiting Scholar\, Visualizing Abolition at University of California\, Santa Cruz \n\n\n\nCarceral Media Ecologies—and How to Break Them is the culminating in-person event in a series of conversations examining how contemporary documentary forms participate in both the making and unmaking of carceral power. This symposium brings together organizers\, filmmakers\, scholars and artists—both with and without experiences of mass incarceration—for a daylong conversation on disrupting the carceral state and its media ecologies across multiple scales of intervention: from feminist organizing and prisoner-initiated programs to incarcerated media production\, participatory defense\, counterforensic art\, and legal advocacy.  \n\n\n\n\nRSVP\n\n\n\n\nSymposium Program\n\n\n\n9:30 am onward – Coffee + Pastries10:00–10:15 – Welcome (Rachel Nelson + Pooja Rangan)10:15–11:15 – Conversation: Adamu Chan + Gilda Sheppard\, moderated by Gina Dent \n\n\n\nA conversation on the challenges of pursuing anti-carceral aesthetics and the political stakes of speaking outside the carceral frame. \n\n\n\n11:15–11:30 – Break \n\n\n\n11:30–1:00 – Panel: Counterforensic Advocacy (Ashraf Hamdan\, Silicon Valley Debug\, Sharon Daniel)\, moderated by Pooja RanganA panel on decarceral legal and policy interventions\, including participatory defense\, advocacy media\, and counterforensic art  \n\n\n\n1:00–2:00 – Lunch \n\n\n\n2:00–3:30 – Panel: Fugitive Media (Keisha Knight\, Thanh Tran\, Anthony Tafoya)\, moderated by Rachel NelsonA panel on media produced behind bars and the activism involved in building oppositional circuits of visibility and solidarity \n\n\n\n3:45–4:00 – Break \n\n\n\n4:00–4:30 – Concluding Reflections – Gina Dent \n\n\n\n4:30–5:30 – Reception \n\n\n\nSpeakers\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAdamu Chan is an award-winning filmmaker\, writer\, and community organizer from the Bay Area whose artistry is rooted in relationships and lived experience. His film What These Walls Won’t Hold\, filmed during the COVID-19 pandemic in San Quentin State Prison\, chronicles the organizing and connections that emerged despite incarceration. His work invites viewers into conversations about social justice\, resilience\, and community. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSharon Daniel is a media artist and innovator in interactive documentary whose online artworks and multimedia installations examine social\, racial\, and environmental injustice. For over two decades\, her creative research has focused on the criminal legal system\, often in collaboration with incarcerated people and other impacted communities. Her work has been exhibited internationally and supported by fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation\, Fulbright Program\, and Rockefeller Foundation. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nGina Dent (Ph.D.\, English & Comparative Literature\, Columbia University) is Professorof Humanities and Faculty Director of the Institute of the Arts & Sciences at theUniversity of California\, Santa Cruz\, where she has won awards for her teaching (DizikesFaculty Teaching Award)\, advocacy (Chancellor’s Award for Diversity)\, and research(Innovator of the Year). Currently\, she serves as Principal Investigator and Co-Directorfor Visualizing Abolition\, a multidisciplinary project—involving exhibitions\, events\,fellowships\, and academic programs—addressing the global crisis of incarcerationthrough art and visual culture. Her recent collaborative projects grow out of her decades-long work as a social justice advocate—Abolition. Feminism. Now. (co-authored withAngela Davis\, Erica Meiners\, and Beth Richie\, Haymarket 2022)\, and Seeing throughStone (exhibition catalog\, Marquand 2024). \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAshraf Hamdan is an architect and researcher working within Forensic Architecture’s Gaza research programme. His work focuses on the built environment\, collective networks\, and Palestinian spatial formations under Israeli colonialism. He previously worked with the Sakiya Foundation\, researching ecological systems and human settlements. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRaj Jayadev is co-founder of Silicon Valley De-Bug\, a San José-based organization focused on community organizing\, advocacy\, and multimedia storytelling. Through De-Bug’s Albert Cobarrubias Justice Project\, he helped develop participatory defense\, a community-driven model that supports families with loved ones facing the criminal legal system and works to shift power and influence case outcomes in the courts. Jayadev received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2018 for his community-based justice work. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nKeisha Nicole Knight is a researcher and cultural organizer based in Los Angeles. She previously served as Director of Funds and Advocacy at the International Documentary Association and was a Warhol Curatorial Fellow. Knight founded Sentient.Art.Film\, a creative distribution initiative\, and Solidarity Media Network\, a hub for anti-carceral\, anti-racist media production and organizing. She is currently a doctoral candidate in Film and Visual Studies at Harvard University. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRachel Nelson is Director and Chief Curator of the Institute of the Arts and Sciences and co-director with Gina Dent of Visualizing Abolition\, an initiative that uses art and education to shift social attachments to prisons. She has curated numerous group and solo exhibitions and writes widely on contemporary art and geopolitics for publications such as Journal of Curatorial Studies\, Brooklyn Rail\, and Third Text. Nelson also teaches in the Visualizing Abolition Studies program at UC Santa Cruz. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPooja Rangan is an award-winning documentary scholar and Professor of English in Film and Media Studies at Amherst College. She is the author of The Documentary Audit: Listening and the Limits of Accountability\, Thinking with an Accent (coedited)\, and Immediations: The Humanitarian Impulse in Documentary. She is currently co-authoring a book on documentary and carceral world-building with filmmaker Brett Story\, titled Why Look at Prisons. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nGilda Sheppard is faculty emerita in sociology\, cultural and media studies at Evergreen State College in Tacoma\, WA. Sheppard taught at Washington prisons for over a decade. She is an international award-winning filmmaker\, most recently for her documentary\, Since I Been Down\, featuring the Black Prisoner Caucus and their prison initiated liberation education program. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAnthony “Tony” Tafoya (he/they) is a paralegal\, organizer\, and former Ella Baker Center Inside Policy Fellow. A queer\, systems-impacted advocate and Inside Managing Producer of the award-winning podcast Ear Hustle\, Tafoya works to uplift stories from inside and build momentum for policy change. They also serve as Community Liaison for The People in Blue\, supporting incarcerated people collectively working toward decarceration and healing. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThanh Tran is an Amerasian Vietnamese and Black filmmaker\, music artist\, and community organizer from Sacramento\, California. While incarcerated at San Quentin\, he co-founded Uncuffed\, an award-winning podcast\, and ForwardThis Productions\, one of the first film collectives led entirely by incarcerated people. He is now co-founder of New Krma Media and director of Finding Má\, a feature documentary about his family’s search for their unhoused mother.
URL:https://ias.ucsc.edu/event/carceral-media-ecologies-and-how-to-break-them/
LOCATION:Institute of the Arts and Sciences\, 100 Panetta Avenue\, Santa Cruz\, California\, 95060\, United States
CATEGORIES:Symposiums & Conferences,Visualizing Abolition
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://ias.ucsc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/since-i-been-down-smaller.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260515T173000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260515T190000
DTSTAMP:20260427T062935
CREATED:20260330T222058Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260403T154614Z
UID:10918-1778866200-1778871600@ias.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:Rasanblé/Rasanblaj: Call & Response
DESCRIPTION:Join us for an evening of call and response between Portsha Jefferson\, dancer and artistic director of Rara Tou Limen\, and artist-scholar Gina Athena Ulysse.  \n\n\n\nJefferson will offer a Haitian dance response to Redwoods Rasanblaj: Origins & Disentanglements and screen her short film IMAMOU: Hotô to Shore… Agbe | Agwe\, and Ulysse will read from her memoir\, Loving Haiti\, Loving Vodou. A dialogue between Jefferson and Ulysse will follow. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPortsha Terae Jefferson has a 25 year history of performance\, choreography\, research & travel passionately rooted in African/Caribbean dance\, drumming and spiritual traditions. Hailing from a blazed Dance trek\, her Dancestory is truly emblazoned by that of Ancestral commission. She began her formal training at the age of six at the Marsha Woody Dance Academy. From Beaumont\, Texas to the Bay Area\, Ms. Jefferson also revered as\, “Zetwal Ashade Bon Manbo” has cultivated a trajectory of Dance excellence\, dynamic performance and a cultural legacy of training\, education and cultural exchange. Often nurtured by Bay Area Dance luminaries Lynn Coles and Blanche Brown to name a few\, to Haitian Dance Masters such as Pioneer Vivianne Gauthier with consistent training at Ecole Nationale de Artes [ENARTS]\, transcended through the establishment of Rara Tou Limen Haitian Performing Company in 2004. \n\n\n\nAs a cultural practitioner and visionary\, Ms. Jefferson’s dedication and exploration of Haitian culture have brought her to Haiti\, where she has traveled throughout the country to research regional dance\, rhythms and musical traditions since 2003. Specific interest and concentration of study took place in Gonaives at Lakou Badjo\, where Nago (Yoruba) traditions are preserved\, and at Tanp Souvenance Mistik\, a Vodou community that celebrates its Rada (kingdom of Dahomey) heritage. Ms.Jefferson’s visionary Artistic leadership and RTL Company’s unforgettable presentations\, classes\, workshops\, festivals\, cultural exchange trips\, and retreats\, have garnered her the attention as respected colleague and established cultural gatekeeper\, forging new trailways through ancient traditions — staying true to the sojourn carving pathways for many to flourish crossing boundaries and dimensions in the Dance. \n\n\n\nShe has presented at the Black Sacred Arts Conference at Yale University\, the KOSANBA Conference in Miami\, and the Rex Nettleford Conference in Kingston\, Jamaica. Her teaching spans internationally\, including the University of Panama\, while her embodied practice has led her to Cuba\, and Jamaica\, where she has shared Haitian dance within community and cultural spaces. Her work is further enriched by ongoing cultural exchange and research in Haiti\, Cuba\, and most recently\, Benin. \n\n\n\nMs. Jefferson has served as an Adjunct Professor at the University of California\, Berkeley and with the Conservatory for Contemporary Dance Arts\, and as an artist-in-residence across Oakland\, Berkeley\, Richmond\, and San Francisco Unified School Districts. A passionate advocate for education and youth development\, she has contributed to numerous arts education initiatives and has shared her work at colleges\, universities\, and studios including Stanford\, Miami Dade College – Kendall\, UC Santa Cruz\, Dance Mission Theater and the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts. She also serves as a Cultural Arts Specialist with Oakland Parks and Recreation \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nGina Athena Ulysse (b 1966) Haiti/United States is an artist-scholar\, Professor of Humanities and Founding Director of the Rasanblaj Praxis Project Lab (RPPL) at the University of California\, Santa Cruz. Concerned with the visceral in the structural\, her questions engage geopolitics\, historical representations\, aesthetics and the spiritual in the dailiness of Black diasporic conditions. In the last two decades\, her rasanblaj approach (the gathering of ideas\, things\, people\, and spirits) to her multidisciplinary art and writing practice entails ongoing crossings and dialogues in the arts\, humanities\, and social sciences. She has performed at The British Museum\, the Brooklyn Museum\, Cabaret Voltaire\, Gorki Theatre\, House of World Cultures\, LaMaMa\, Marcus Garvey Liberty Hall\, MoMA Salon\, among other venues. She has held residencies at the University of Buffalo\, Oregon State\, University of Zurich\, as well as the Bogliasco Foundation Study Center in Italy. In 2020\, she was an invited artist to the Biennale of Sydney. In 2024\, she was invited to participate in the Biennale de Dakar. She is a 2025 MacDowell fellow. Her major publications include the forthcoming A Year and A Day. Leonore Mau and Haiti (Oct 2025\, editor with Dora Imhoff and U5)\, a polyphonic inquiry into the photographs Leonore Mau (1916-2013) took in Haiti during the 1970s; Why Haiti Needs New Narratives: A Post-Quake Chronicle (2015); Because When God is Too Busy: Haiti\, me & THE WORLD (2017) – long-listed for the 2017 PEN Open Book Award and recipient of the 2018 Best Poetry Connecticut Center for the Book Award – and  A Call to Rasanblaj: Black Feminist Futures and Ethnographic Aesthetics(2023). She was the invited editor of e-misferica’s Caribbean Rasanblaj (2015)\, the Hemispheric Institute’s Journal for Performance and Politics. Her visual art has appeared on the covers of Feminist Formations\, Feminist Studies\, Frontiers\, and Meridians Journals. \n\n\n\n\n\nThis event is organized as part of Visualizing Abolition\, an initiative designed to promote creative research to inspire social transformation and the end of incarceration.
URL:https://ias.ucsc.edu/event/rasanblaj-call-response/
LOCATION:Institute of the Arts and Sciences\, 100 Panetta Avenue\, Santa Cruz\, California\, 95060\, United States
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ias.ucsc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/IMG-1454.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260516T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260516T160000
DTSTAMP:20260427T062935
CREATED:20260402T185333Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260403T234343Z
UID:10949-1778940000-1778947200@ias.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:Opening Celebration for Visions from Within: Resilience
DESCRIPTION:Join us for the opening celebration of Visions from Within: Resilience.  \n\n\n\nVisions From Within is a continued series of art exhibitions dedicated to uplifting and platforming artists who are currently system impacted.
URL:https://ias.ucsc.edu/event/opening-celebration-for-visions-from-within-resilience/
LOCATION:Santa Cruz Barrios Unidos\, 1817 Soquel Avenue\, Santa Cruz\, California\, 95062\, United States
CATEGORIES:Visualizing Abolition
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ias.ucsc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Visions-from-Within_112025_036.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260522T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260522T140000
DTSTAMP:20260427T062935
CREATED:20260325T183134Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260325T221251Z
UID:10920-1779451200-1779458400@ias.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:Something held by poetry
DESCRIPTION:In this intimate workshop\, UC Santa Cruz students\, faculty\, and staff are invited into conversation with poets Ronaldo Wilson and Terri Witek. Something held by poetry is part of there are no words\, but melodies and will be held in the galleries. RSVP is required. \n\n\n\n\nRSVP\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRonaldo V. Wilson is a poet\, interdisciplinary artist\, academic\, and the author of Narrative of the Life of the Brown Boy and the White Man\, winner of the Cave Canem Prize; Poems of the Black Object\, winner of the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry and the Asian American Literary Award in Poetry; Farther Traveler: Poetry\, Prose\, Other\, and Lucy 72. His latest books are Carmelina: Figures and Virgil Kills: Stories. He is the editor of three special issues of hybrid and experimental work in Interim: A Journal of Poetry and Poetics; and Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora. He has shown work and performed most recently at the Center for African American Poetry and Poetics\, and The Woodberry Poetry Room at Harvard. The recipient of numerous fellowships\, including Cave Canem\, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown\, MacDowell\, and The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation\, Wilson is Professor of Creative Writing and Literature at U.C. Santa Cruz\, where he directs the Creative Writing Program\, and serves on the core faculty of the Creative Critical PhD Program; principal faculty member of CRES (Critical Race and Ethnic Studies); and affiliate faculty member of DANM (Digital Arts and New Media). \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTerri Witek’s most recent books include her 2026 eco-poetics collection with AmaranthBorsuk\, W/\ SH\, which loops two rain prophets\, both women\, into a crisis between futureworlds\, and 2023’s Something’s Missing in This Museum (Anhinga Press) . A translation byDona Mayoora of 2018’s The Rape Kit into Malayalam is forthcoming. Her work has beenincluded in many anthologies\, including 2 from 2021: JUDITH: Women Making Visual Poetry(Timglaset Editions ) and the WAAVe Global Gallery (Hysterical Books). Witek’s solo andcollaborative work has been featured in a wide variety of text venues\, including Fence\, TheColorado Review\, Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review\, American Poetry Review\, Poetry\, Slate\,Hudson Review\, Lana Turner\, The New Republic\, and UTSANGA . \n\n\n\nWith Brazilian visual artist Cyriaco Lopes (cyriacolopes.com) Witek co-founded Poetry inthe Expanded Field in Stetson University’s low-residency MFA in Creative Writing; the duohave also led The Fernando Pessoa Game at the summer Disquiet International LiteraryProgram in Lisbon. Their two decades of collaborative text/image work ascyriacolopesterriwitek has been featured at ARCO in Madrid and in Seoul\, Chania (Crete)\,Miami\, New York\, Philadelphia\, Lisbon\, Valencia (Spain) and many other art and literaryvenues. Collaborations with new media artist Matt Roberts (mattroberts.com) often useaugmented reality and have been featured in Matanza (Colombia)\, Lisbon\, Glasgow\,Vancouver\, Orlando and Miami. Recent work with weaver Paula Damm combinestext/textile and has been shown in St Augustine and Germany.Witek is recipient of multiple teaching awards\, and remains core faculty in Poetry in theExpanded Field in Stetson University’s graduate Creative Writing program. terriwitek.com
URL:https://ias.ucsc.edu/event/something-held-by-poetry/
LOCATION:Institute of the Arts and Sciences\, 100 Panetta Avenue\, Santa Cruz\, California\, 95060\, United States
CATEGORIES:Visualizing Abolition,Workshops
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ias.ucsc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Ronaldo-Wilson-F.A.G.e.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260523T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260523T153000
DTSTAMP:20260427T062935
CREATED:20260409T214300Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260422T190956Z
UID:10988-1779544800-1779550200@ias.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:In Conversation: All This Safety is Killing Us
DESCRIPTION:Join us for a conversation between Aminah Elster\, Jennifer James\, and Carlos Martinez on the intersection of prison abolition and healthcare. In 2025 Martinez co-edited All This Safety Is Killing Us: Health Justice Beyond Prisons\, Police\, and Borders to which Elster and James contributed the chapter “Medical Neglect as Carceral Violence.” \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAminah Elster is a Black feminist abolitionist\, advocate\, and researcher whose work transforms systems by centering the leadership and expertise of directly impacted people. She is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Unapologetically HERS (UAHERS)\, an organization led by formerly incarcerated women advancing healing\, justice\, and leadership through participatory research and professional development. Under her leadership\, UAHERS launched the Participatory Action Research Leadership Program (PARLP)—a fellowship equipping people incarcerated in California women’s prisons with the tools to conduct research that informs advocacy\, policy\, and systems change. \n\n\n\nAminah’s abolitionist practice is also reflected in her long-standing work with the California Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP)\, where she serves as the Leadership & Resentencing Coordinator and has contributed to policy advocacy\, participatory research\, and the organization’s inside/outside organizing of those incarcerated in CA women’s prisons. Her work with CCWP has shaped campaigns advancing resentencing\, challenging gender-based state violence\, and uplifting peer-led leadership inside and outside prison walls. \n\n\n\nShe is also the CEO and principal of Proximate Strategies Consulting (PSC)\, a community-centered strategy and research firm that partners with public systems\, foundations\, and organizations to co-design equitable solutions and build cultures of belonging. PSC’s Fellowship portfolio increases the reach of peer-led interventions and helps systems access the expertise of people most affected by their policies—advancing this work through participatory action research\, professional development\, and applied research. \n\n\n\nA certified paralegal and ICF Certified Professional Coach\, Aminah is a contributing author to All This Safety Is Killing Us\, where her chapter\, “Medical Neglect as Carceral Violence\,” exposes the violent realities of healthcare behind bars. She also co-authored the policy brief Criminal Record Stigma in the College-Educated Labor Market\, which examines how record-based discrimination constrains opportunity even among credentialed job seekers. Aminah received her undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nJennifer James is an Associate Professor and the Nursing Alumni and Mary Harms Endowed Chair in the Institute for Health and Aging and the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of California San Francisco\, where she also directs the sociology PhD program. Jen is a sociologist and Black Feminist scholar who conducts community-engaged qualitative research on racism and health.  \n\n\n\nHer current work is focused on patient-provider relationships and shared decision-making in carceral settings. Across several research projects\, her work centers the voices and experiences of people incarcerated in prisons and jails to better understand women’s health and aging behind bars. Her work has been published in social science\, bioethics\, and health sciences journals\, as well as in numerous edited volumes and in publications distributed inside prisons. Dr. James holds a PhD in Sociology from UCSF\, a Master’s of Social Work and a Master’s of Science in Social Policy from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Yale University. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCarlos Martinez\, MPH\, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Latin American and Latino Studies and core faculty member of the Global and Community Health program at the University of California\, Santa Cruz. Trained in public health and medical anthropology\, Dr. Martinez’s research examines the health and sociocultural implications of policing\, incarceration\, and punitive immigration and drug policies. He is the co-editor of All This Safety Is Killing Us: Health Justice Beyond Prisons\, Police\, and Borders (North Atlantic Books\, 2025). \n\n\n\n\n\nThis event is organized in conjunction with the exhibition Everything is Going Right and as part of Visualizing Abolition\, an arts-based initiative that reaches across prison borders to contribute to the unfolding collective story and alternative imagining underway to create a future free of prisons.
URL:https://ias.ucsc.edu/event/in-conversation-all-this-safety-is-killing-us/
LOCATION:Institute of the Arts and Sciences\, 100 Panetta Avenue\, Santa Cruz\, California\, 95060\, United States
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ias.ucsc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/All-This-Safety-thumb.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260530T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260530T170000
DTSTAMP:20260427T062935
CREATED:20260325T181303Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260325T192625Z
UID:10934-1780142400-1780160400@ias.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:Office Hours Under the Sea
DESCRIPTION:Join Ronaldo Wilson and special guests for a site-specific\, endurance performance as part of there are no words\, but melodies. Drop in and visit Wilson’s office hours any time between 12pm and 5pm. \n\n\n\nAbout the Artist: \n\n\n\nRonaldo V. Wilson is a poet\, interdisciplinary artist\, academic\, and the author of Narrative of the Life of the Brown Boy and the White Man\, winner of the Cave Canem Prize; Poems of the Black Object\, winner of the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry and the Asian American Literary Award in Poetry; Farther Traveler: Poetry\, Prose\, Other\, and Lucy 72. His latest books are Carmelina: Figures and Virgil Kills: Stories. He is the editor of three special issues of hybrid and experimental work in Interim: A Journal of Poetry and Poetics; and Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora. He has shown work and performed most recently at the Center for African American Poetry and Poetics\, and The Woodberry Poetry Room at Harvard. The recipient of numerous fellowships\, including Cave Canem\, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown\, MacDowell\, and The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation\, Wilson is Professor of Creative Writing and Literature at U.C. Santa Cruz\, where he directs the Creative Writing Program\, and serves on the core faculty of the Creative Critical PhD Program; principal faculty member of CRES (Critical Race and Ethnic Studies); and affiliate faculty member of DANM (Digital Arts and New Media).
URL:https://ias.ucsc.edu/event/office-hours-under-the-sea/
LOCATION:Institute of the Arts and Sciences\, 100 Panetta Avenue\, Santa Cruz\, California\, 95060\, United States
CATEGORIES:Music & Performances,Visualizing Abolition
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ias.ucsc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/250726_Ronaldo-Wilson_R47_404-scaled-1.jpg
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END:VCALENDAR