2021-2022 Full Archive List
FALL 2021
November 1, 2021
Xicana[x] Indigenous Values: Encuentros, Convenings and Conversations - “Día de los Muertos Vigil”
The Xicana[x] Indigenous Values project was initiated on November 1, 2021 with our annual Día de Muertos Vigil and Celebration, curated by Celia Herrera Rodriguez. This year, the evening of song, danza and ritual ancestral remembrance was held in downtown Santa Barbara’s Dart Coffee garden. A first for the “funk zone, SB,” the event was attended by over 300 members of the community, mostly Raza, in-person and online. Students in Chicano Studies 128 built personal altars alongside Santa Barbara community organizations and members.
December 3, 2021
Bridge Turns 40! -- A Celebration of the 40th Anniversary Edition of This Bridge Called My Back
An intergenerational celebration of the seminal text, This Bridge Called My Back: Writings By Radical Women of Color. Reissued forty years after its inception, the celebration and launch of the fifth edition brought together several generations. Together, members of the community joined to reflect on Bridge's "living legacy" and the broader community of women of color activists, writers, and artists whose enduring contributions resonate with its radical vision.
Upon the 40th anniversary of This Bridge Called My Back - Writings by Radical Women of Color, Professor Cherríe Moraga, its coeditor, began an intensive interview process, engaging graduate students in the Department of English to record the stories of the surviving original contributors of the now classic collection of writings. Chronicling the experiences of some of the earliest days of U.S. Women of Color feminism, the first round of interviews were edited by Moraga and UCLA graduate student, Marisa Gerónimo. These edited interviews became part of a three-hour honoring and celebration, which also included live in-person presentations by UCSB students and testimonios by two generations of scholars, artists and activists in the field of transnational feminist theory and practice.
SPRING 2022
April 5 - April 15, 2022
Claudia Bernardi: Artist in Residence
Public Talk: “The Instinct of Justice and the Practice of Beauty at McCune Room, IHC.”
What does it mean to carry both “an instinct towards justice” and the desire to incorporate “the practice of beauty” in one’s life as a survivor of political violence? What might art do for those who have undergone personal, communal and or trans-generational trauma? How might it also affect public policy?
In her presentation of images from Argentina to Colombia and El Salvador, internationally-recognized Argentine artist and human rights activist, Claudia Bernardi, offered UC Santa Barbara and the Santa Barbara community the extraordinary opportunity to explore the ways in which art can intersect directly with human rights to enlist a collaborative form of resistance among the survivors of political violence and entrenched systems of injustice.
Events throughout Bernardi’s week-long stay:
Graduate Student Seminar: “Cartography of Memory” at Las Maestras Center
A three-hour cross-disciplinary seminar to uncover the ways in which art can document a visual map of memory and historical testimony. Students were provided with a reading list to prepare for this seminar; attended by students from Chicano/a Studies, the Spanish Department, English, Anthropology, as well as community artists and activists.
Community Dialogue: The Practice of Public Art at The Multicultural Center Lounge
An informal gathering in an intergenerational and cross-disciplinary dialogue with artists, activists, students and community members on the role and practice of public art. Twenty-five people in attendance, including elders from the Santa Barbara Visual Arts community.
Community Conversation with ‘Femme’ Community Leaders at El Centro on the Westside of Santa Barbara
An intergenerational dialogue with artists, activists, students and community members on the practice of mural making as public testimony with LMC's artist in residence, Claudia Bernardi. With the support of our Co-Director, Celia Herrera Rodriguez and LMC’s Community Liaison and Chicanx Studies graduate student, John Jairo Valencia, LMC collaborated with El Centro, a small community-based organization on the Westside of Santa Barbara to host a dialogue with Bernardi on mural making and the practice of art as testimony. This conversation was attended by 15 different ‘femme’ leaders ranging in age from sixteen to seventy-five. It initiated a very positive connection and aspiration within LMC and the community of women to consider future collaborations.
May 6 - May 29, 2022
Tlali Nantli: Conexiones Con La Tierra - Exhibition
At El Centro Cultural de La Raza, San Diego
In collaboration with El Centro Cultural de la Raza en San Diego and Taller Arte Del Nuevo Amanecer (TANA) at UC Davis. Curated by Celia Herrera Rodríguez in collaboration with artists: Gina Aparicio, Nereida García-Ferraz, Suzy Hernández, Gilda Posada, Fan Lee Warren and John Jairo Valencia. This exhibition offers an intergenerational political and practical narration of what it means to uphold the feminine energies of the earth. The works in this exhibition are tied together through the sacred elements of life: water, earth, wind and fire.
May 31, 2022
Floricanto (In Xochitl, In Cuicatl) “Of Like Mind’ – The Poetics of Prophecy, Política and Prayer.”
Reading “Of Like Mind” Works-in-Progress Pieces from A Spring Quarter Creative Writing Workshop