Black Futures lecture
Fall 2022
Thursdays at BAMPFA Osher Theater. All talks are free and open to the public.
Doors open at 12:30 PM, and lectures run from 12:45 PM to 2:00 PM.

Berkeley Arts + Design partners with BAMPFA to offer public lectures in conjunction with courses at UC Berkeley. Join us every Thursday afternoon to hear cutting-edge thinkers and makers share about their creative practice.

Thinking Through Arts and Design @Berkeley

This fall series is about 'Creativity and Practice' as a vital resource in times of change. Together we focus on a central question: How do we create?

World-renowned creators from Berkeley and beyond in practices ranging from biology to art, from poetry to data science, and from dance to community leaders will provide many different answers. The speakers will share different views on creativity in their fields, and also establish common ground in their shared motivations to do social good, achieve personal fulfillment, and advance the constant process of cultural change.

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Arts + Design Thursdays is made possible thanks to support from the Big Ideas Courses Program in the College of Letters & Science at UC Berkeley. In-kind technical support and presentation offered by BAMPFA and the UC Berkeley College of Letters & Science, Division of Arts & Humanities. For more information, visit artsdesign.berkeley.edu/thursdays

If you require captioning to access a pre-recorded event on our site, please contact Evelyn Thorne at evelynthorne@berkeley.edu. Please expect 7-10 days for captioning to be provided. All recorded videos will be uploaded to the Berkeley Arts + Design YouTube channel with the consent of the featured speakers. Please see updates on COVID policies here. 

In a black and white image, Latanya Tigner sits on a couch.

Latanya d. Tigner: Entering Community, a Slow Creative Process

Thu Oct 13, 2022 12:45 PM - 2:00 PM
BAMPFA Osher Theater

Through this conversation/presentation, Latanya d. Tigner shares colorful lessons about how to respectfully enter and engage cultural communities, learned during her informal observation of African movement and spiritual retention in New Orleans jazz funerals and Second Line parading traditions. She also shares how these lessons continue to impact her resulting creative representation of this process, St. Ann and N.

Car breaks down in Kandahar

Helena Zeweri, Zelikha Shoja, & Hawa Amin-Arsala: Emergent Archives of Afghan Diasporic Memory

Thu Oct 20, 2022 12:45 PM - 2:00 PM
Zoom Webinar

Register for the Zoom webinar here

Christina Yang, wearing a black top, poses for a portrait in front of a brick wall.

Christina Yang: Curating Performance

Thu Oct 27, 2022 12:45 PM - 2:00 PM
Zoom Webinar

Register for webinar here

In a black and white photo, Edmund Campion looks up at the camera for a portrait shot.

HUMAN/EXPRESSION/EMOTION/TECHNOLOGY/MACHINE/ME

Thu Nov 03, 2022 12:45 PM - 2:00 PM
BAMPFA Osher Theater

This event will also be live streamed. Register for webinar here. 

Alexandra Saum-Pascual, wearing brown glasses, poses for a portrait.

Alex Saum-Pascual: Digital Poetry for the End of the World

Thu Nov 10, 2022 12:45 PM - 2:00 PM
BAMPFA Osher Theater

Alex Saum-Pascual—a digital artist, poet, and UC Berkeley professor of contemporary Spanish literature and new media—discusses her academic and creative work on digital literature, examining the environmental impact of digital technologies. 

Pablo Gonzalez, wearing a navy blazer and white dress shirt, poses for a portrait.

Pablo Gonzalez: An Other Campus: Memory and Reenvisioning of the UC Berkeley Campus through Augmented Reality

Thu Nov 17, 2022 12:45 PM - 2:00 PM
BAMPFA Osher Theater

Every day, campus tours walk visitors across the UC Berkeley campus. Tour leaders recount important historical moments and highlight monuments, yet the official tour constructs a narrative of the campus that leaves out thousands of stories. This presentation by UC Berkeley continuing lecturer Dr. Pablo Gonzalez focuses on an ongoing project to reenvision the history of the campus through the use of augmented reality.

Laurel arches back into the floor, balancing on two wheels, arms curved up loosely over body and face. Freckles glow in the light and her silver top drapes, of a piece with her frame.

Laurel Lawson: Art Is an Experience: UX, Access, and Equity

Thu Dec 01, 2022 12:45 PM - 2:00 PM
BAMPFA Osher Theater

Experiencing art is a negotiation between instigator and participant, not necessarily bound to a technical medium. Intentional design processes can help us make better art and better experiences. Grounded in disabled understandings of the value of multiplicity of embodiment and experience, choreographer, designer, and engineer Laurel Lawson’s talk moves from transdisciplinary artmaking and decentered design practice, to equitable aesthetic accessibility and technology ethics and leadership.