Hello community, 

June has been packed. LGBTQIA Pride month, Juneteenth became a federal holiday, celebration of fathers and now summer in full force. As we emerge from the last year, we are excited for what we will create when we come back together and aware of the difficulties still facing us. Despite that, we trust you and we trust us - to invent, create, speak, thrive and live. 

With love,

Evan Bissell & Christian M. Ivey

Arts & Cultural Strategy Coordinator / Digital Communications Specialist

evanbissell@berkeley.edu

+opportunities

Owning their buildings has been crucial for mid and small size arts anchors in the Bay Area like The Luggage Store Gallery and East Bay Center for Performing Arts. Community Vision and the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation have a new performing arts property acquisition fund that covers 40% of the purchase price of a property used by Bay Area performing arts groups operating on the “fringes of existing arts infrastructure.” Letters of interest are due by July 2nd. Webinars have passed but you can review recordings here. 

Do you have a vision for what it means to “not go back to normal”? Do you have a vision for building a Just Transition now? Check out the Creative Wildfire call for artists put out by Movement Generation, Climate Justice Alliance and New Economy Coalition. Applications due July 15th.  

+ecosystem

A powerful two-day virtual festival highlighting the work of the Disability Futures fellows focusing on topics that range from Disability Portraiture to The Power and Presence of Indigenous Disabled Stories. Register here.  

The visionary East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative is in contract to purchase the historic Esther’s Orbit Room to develop a mixed use Black cultural space in West Oakland. In a powerful practice of centering culture and arts, EBPREC is partnering with House/Full of BlackWomen to gather input and guidance from Oakland culture keepers in the development of the building.  

+from the archives

The uprisings of 2020 sparked increased conversations around prison abolition and defunding the police. Faculty cluster member Eric Stanley and Nat Smith’s edited collection Captive Genders is essential reading for the role policing and prisons play in enforcing and creating gender norms. Get a taste of Eric’s work in this short interview.

Did you miss community theater in 2020? I did. At our 2017 conference, playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney reminded us of the radical potential of community theater and its crucial role in the fabric of society. 

+nourishment

If you're all about love, then we have the perfect playlist for you.

+reflection from staff

Jordan Brown (she/her or he/him) is a summer fellow with the Institute and student, poet, writer, and community organizer from Georgia who has made a new home in Washington, DC. This summer, Jordan is a Strategic Communications fellow, working on the Intersectional Disability Justice Project. Her piece, “For Black women and girls who aren’t “autistic” enough” was published by the Black Youth Project in May of this year. You can find more of Jordan’s incisive writing on pop culture and more at: https://tallawahthoughts.co/ 

{{Disclaimer}}

Othering & Belonging Institute
University of California, Berkeley
460 Stephens Hall
Tel: 510-642-3326
Berkeley, CA 94720
United States

If you believe you received this message in error or wish to no longer receive email from us, please (Unsubscribing is not supported in previews).