To prepare for the upcoming BCRW conference The Scholar and Feminist 2013: Utopia, we are thrilled to highlight the the diverse and accomplished contributers who will be engaging, educating, and challenging us to imagine the impossible through bold presentations and participatory workshops. Today, we highlight the work of four such contributors who are confronting the status quo through art, activism, publications, and performance.
Dignidad Rebelde is the Oakland-based graphic arts collaboration of Melanie Cervantes and Jesus Barraza. The project “translates stories of struggle and resistance into artwork that can be put back into the hands of the communities who inspire it,” producing pieces “grounded in Third World and indigenous movements that build people’s power to transform the conditions of fragmentation, displacement and loss of culture.” Melanie will be a presenter at Utopia, speaking on “Building Utopia: Stitching the Lessons from Stories and Visions of Women in our Lives” in a morning keynote address.
Writer and activist Reina Gossett will lead the Prison Abolition workshop at Utopia. Reina has collaborated with BCRW as a contributing writer on the S&F Online New Queer Agenda with her piece “Reclaiming Our Lineage: Organized Queer, Gender-Nonconforming, and Transgender Resistance to Police Violence” and as the moderator of our October 2012 panel, Staking Our Claim: Trans Women’s Literature in the 21st Century. Her tumblr “The Spirit Was…” features great writing and links about trans and anti-violence activism. Continue reading