BRING OUR LOVED ONES HOME! Chowchilla Freedom Rally, January 26, 2013

I usually don’t post announcements about my political world or organizing work that isn’t somehow related to art-making on this blog but this shit is too important not to. Besides, if I am really interested in bridging that divide between cultural and political work, where better to do so than here.  So, here it is folks, the announcement of an upcoming action that many of us are pouring our hearts into.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) is converting Valley State Prison for Women (VSPW) into a men’s prison in response to a U.S. Supreme Court order to reduce overcrowding. Instead of releasing people and closing VSPW, they are squeezing over 1,000 women and transgender people into the two remaining women’s prisons. The population of the other women’s prison in Chowchilla, Central California Women’s Facility (CCWF) is dangerously close to 4,000 even though its maximum capacity is 2,000. The conversion has aggravated overcrowding, created dangerous conditions, and healthcare is already getting much worse. What’s more, they have added yet another men’s prison to their inhuman system. We’ve had enough! Come show support for all people locked up in Chowchilla’s prisons and tell the Federal Judges that overcrowding must stop now!

CHOWCHILLA FREEDOM RALLY, Saturday, January 26, 2013

Rides available by bus and carpool. Contact chowchilla.rally@gmail.com or 415-255-7036 ext. 314

Caravans leaving from MacArthur BART in Oakland at 10:30AM and Chuco’s Justice Center in Inglewood at 8:30AM. We will gather at 2PM at the SE corner of Avenue 24 and Fairmead Blvd. off Highway 99 in Chowchilla.

Rally begins at 3PM at VSPW.

OVERCROWDING = DEATH

BRING OUR LOVED ONES HOME!

COMMUNITY RELEASE PROGRAMS * PAROLE FOR ELDERS * RELEASE FOR MEDICAL REASONS * END LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE (LWOP)

Solidarity actions encouraged! If you cannot make the rally or do not live in California, we encourage you to organize a solidarity action on the same day in your community. Hold a demonstration in front of the DOC offices or the county jail, organize a speak-out against prisons in a public space, stand in solidarity with the Chowchilla Freedom Rally! Please let us know how we can support you! Contact info@womenprisoners.org

Interested in helping organize this event? Join our coalition! Our next meeting is Wednesday, January 2, 2013 from 6 – 8PM at the CCWP offices. 1540 Market Street, Suite 490, San Francisco. Or contact adrienne@womenprisoners.org

The Chowchilla Freedom Rally Coalition includes members from California Coalition for Women Prisoners, Californians United for a Responsible Budget, Justice NOW, All Of Us Or None, Legal Services for Prisoners With Children, Fired Up!, Transgender, Gender Variant, Intersex Justice Project, Critical Resistance, Youth Justice Coalition, Global Women’s Strike, Occupy 4 Prisoners, Asian Pacific Islander Support Committee and the California Prison Moratorium Project.

An Infinity of Traces, an interview with Evan Bissell on Organizing Upgrade

This interview has been a long time in the making. Partly because I find Evan Bissell‘s work so damn powerful that it felt difficult for me to do it justice. I knew I wanted to interview Evan after seeing the opening of his project, “The Knotted Line” last spring. It was one of the most moving experiences I’ve had viewing art. Ever.

“The Knotted Line” as an interactive, multi-disciplinary project that explores the historical relationship between freedom and confinement in the United States. It is comprised of over 50 miniature paintings, an interactive online timeline, and a curriculum guide for bringing this expansive history to classrooms of various ages. But what makes Evan’s work so powerful is not necessarily the end result but his approach to art-making wherein he appears more as a grassroots organizer than artist. Through political education, research, self-reflection, relationship building and community empowerment, Evan creates art that strikes at the core of my unrelenting questions and demands of cultural work: how can art function not as a passive form but an active agent for liberatory political practice? What is possible when we reject the distinction between artist, organizer, and community member?

Read the full interview with Evan Bissell on Organizing Upgrade.

Introducing the new contributing editor for Organizing Upgrade

For some time now I’ve been seeking out a forum that emphasizes the dual practice of art making and rebel rousing, otherwise known as cultural organizing. I am so pleased to announce that I am now a contributing editor for the online political forum, Organizing Upgrade. This is a website I turn to frequently to hear from all kinds of hard-hitting organizers about issues ranging from education to immigration to labor rights. Last year, Organizing Upgrade added a Culture section and this year they have asked me to contribute.

Check back soon for more updates and links to the latest on Organizing Upgrade. I am grateful to have a space for continuing the conversation on art and politics.

Technology, Protest, Surveillance and Collective Process!

The Fax (Facts) Bomb event at SF Arts Commission gallery was great. I researched and presented 19 Fax Facts beginning with the rise in popularity of the fax machine in the 1980s and traveling through the invention and subsequent use of cell phones, personal camcorders, and social media websites to protest the government and attempt to hold law enforcement accountable while the government and law enforcement uses these same technologies for surveillance of citizens. Audience members kick-started each segment by reading out loud the fact card they were given and contributed with their own questions, experiences and opinions along the way.

The event also included a presentation by Christian L. Frock who spoke about the use of secondary protest strategies via social media and internet platforms during the detainment of Chinese artist and activst Ai Wei Wei in April 2011. Diana Block gave the closing comments on technology and surveillance by telling her story of discovering an FBI bug in her car and the subsequent years she and other activists spent living underground to evade arrests for their solidarity work with the Black Power and the Puerto Rican Independence Movement.

There was a lively conversation after the slideshow about using the rhetoric of the law when discussing government infringement on privacy, younger generations and the relationship to technology, strategies for defending oneself against surveillance. Audience members were also invited to respond in writing to the following questions: what is your first memory of technology and protest/civic engagement? How do you use or abstain from using technology?

Thank you to SF Arts Commission Gallery, everyone who shared their knowledge and experience and came to the event.

We thought the world we built would be forever, An Interview with Lenn Keller

Maybe it has something to do with turning 29, but it seems that all I want to do lately is talk with older generations of queer artists and political organizers about their lives and work. Last week I met with Lenn Keller, a Bay Area film-maker and photographer whose practice straddles the worlds of art making, political activism, and queerness. I first saw Lenn’s work in 2010 when her exhibition “Fierce Sistahs: Art, Activism and Community of Lesbians of Color in the Bay Area, 1975 – 2000” was on display at the San Francisco Public Library. Fierce Sistahs was a collection of photographs and ephemera documenting the political and social lives of lesbians of color from pride parades to workshops to community gatherings. Shortly after I included Lenn’s series of portraits of gender non-comforming youth of color into the exhibition, “Suggestions of A Life Being Lived” at  SFCamerawork which I co-curated with Danny Orendorff. Lenn is a living vestige to the Bay Area’s history of lesbian culture and political movements centered on the experiences of women of color. We talked about this history, and how the politics of the Bay Area attempts to erode lesbian culture, as well as her film, A Persistent Desire which traces the evolution of butch-femme identities and dynamics. While posting this interview in June is perhaps a nod to San Francisco’s Pride festivities, Lenn’s work and experience reveal a complex legacy that extends well beyond the month and provides a historical context to our current manifestations of queer protest, survival and joy. Read the interview on SFMOMA’s Open Space.

FAX (FACTS) BOMB, a participatory lecture at San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery on June 30th

On June 30th I will be presenting “Fax (Facts) Bomb” in conjunction with the San Francisco Art Commission Gallery’s current exhibition, FAX. Through a participatory slideshow I will trace the evolution of technology and its effects on protest tactics and surveillance focusing on topics such as the invention of the camcorder, facebook black-outs, twitter’s new home in San Francisco, online petitions, Zapatista’s cyber sit-ins and BART police’s infringement on freedom of speech. This event will also feature Diana Block and other longtime activists as they talk about their experience with technology, protest and policing. Come join the conversation!

San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery
401 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco
Saturday, June 30th at 5PM

Toma Las Calles! Take It to the Streets! An Interview with Melanie Cervantes of Dignidad Rebelde

Whoa, lucky me! I recently interviewed printmaker and activist, Melanie Cervantes of Dignidad Rebelde. I see Melanie’s prints everywhere: at each protest or demonstration I attend, in the office of the grassroots organizations I volunteer with, in the collective households I visit. Melanie’s work is prolific and grounded in a belief that art belongs to the people and is a powerful tool for organizing the masses into action. She is wise and humble and reminds me why I do what I do. You can read the interview at SFMOMA’s blog, Open Space.