On this special episode of The Dream Deferred, we take you through the Unsettling California exhibit showcased at the glass box gallery on campus at UC Santa Barbara. In this episode, we introduce you to the contributing artists, their pieces, and relationship to the layered landscape of California. The exhibition, co-curated by Mellon Sawyer seminar graduates, Dani Kwan and Samantha Harris, features works by contemporary California artists whose practices question the persistent presence of colonial ideologies, structures, and policies that have shaped migration, citizenship, inclusion and exclusion, as well as the racial and spatial formations of the State.

Special thanks to the Mellon Foundation’s Sawyer Seminars for supporting this podcast. 

Produced, edited, and sound designed by Molly McAnany.

Edited by Adam Burston.

Co-produced by Lisa Parks, France Winddance Twine, and Kim Yasuda.

All music in this episode courtesy of Soundstripe.

Cover art by Dani Kwan.

For more on the artists:

• Jessica Bellamy 
• Sarah Rosalena Brady
• Marisa de la Pena
• Mercedes Dorame
• Pilar Aguero-Esparza
• Margaret Laurena Kemp
• Silas Munro and Polymode Studio 
• Hillary Mushkin
• Kate Saubestre 
• Debra Scacco 
• Devon Tsuno 

For more on the exhibit:

• Photographs of the show
• Artwork statements 
• Exhibit flyers

Special thanks to the curatorial team:
Graduate Co-Curators: Dani Kwan, MFA Candidate, Department of Art & Samantha Harris, PhD Candidate, Graduate School of Education

Faculty Co-Advisors: Kim Yasuda, Professor, Department of Art & Lisa Parks, Distinguished Professor, Film and Media Studies

This podcast was funded by a 2021-22 Andrew Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar grant in support of “Race, Precarity and Privilege: Migration in a Global Context" at UC Santa Barbara. For more information on this interdisciplinary collaboration and Co- PIs see: https://raceandmigrationucsb.org.

In this episode of The Dream Deferred, we speak with artist Devon Tsuno, Associate Professor of Art and co-director of the Praxis art engagement program at California State University, Dominguez Hills. Tsuno’s work explores his own family history within the Japanese-American internment experience, drawing his research for his photography and art practice from the physical soil of the land, memory traces, and embodied histories of California. We also hear from Dan Kubo, a fourth generation Japanese-American farmer from Turlock, California, who tells his family's incarceration experience and how his father regained his agency after imprisonment.

Special thanks to the Mellon Foundation’s Sawyer Seminars for supporting this podcast.

Produced, edited, and sound designed by Molly McAnany.

Edited by Adam Burston.

Co-produced by Lisa Parks, France Winddance Twine, and Kim Yasuda.

All music in this episode courtesy of Soundstripe.

Cover art by Dani Kwan.

Sources referenced on this episode:

• Elizabeth Ito’s City of Ghosts
• Gidra newspaper
• Rocky Rivera
• Beat Rock Music Collective

For more on our guest, Devon Tsuno:

• Art Professor Devon Tsuno Leads Community Network in Creating, Distributing Face Shields
• Praxis Studio

For more on our host, Kim Yasuda:

• UC Santa Barbara Department of Art

This podcast was funded by a 2021-22 Andrew Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar grant in support of “Race, Precarity and Privilege: Migration in a Global Context" at UC Santa Barbara. For more information on this interdisciplinary collaboration and Co- PIs see: https://raceandmigrationucsb.org.

In this episode of The Dream Deferred, we sit down with Kara Keeling, USC Professor of Cinema and Media Studies to talk about her book Queer Times, Black Futures. This book explores Afrofuturism through the lens of Black feminisms and queer theory. Engaging with the work of Grace Jones, Audre Lorde, Sun Ra, and Octavia Butler, all of whom spent time in California, Keeling presents multiple constellations of Black queer life as models for the future. As Keeling emphasizes, we can’t imagine a just and equitable future without engaging with Black artists, filmmakers, musicians, and writers.

Special thanks to the Mellon Foundation’s Sawyer Seminars for supporting this podcast.

Produced, edited, and sound designed by Molly McAnany.

Edited by Adam Burston.

Co-produced by Lisa Parks, France Winddance Twine, and Kim Yasuda.

All music in this episode courtesy of Soundstripe.

Cover art by Dani Kwan.

Sources referenced on this episode:

• Afrocentricity and the Western Paradigm
• Edouard Glissant’s Poetics of Relation
• Audre Lorde’s The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House

For more on our guest, Kara Keeling:

• University of Chicago Department of Film & Media Studies
• Queer Times, Black Futures
• Twitter

For more on our host, Lisa Parks:

• UC Santa Barbara Department of Film & Media Studies

This podcast was funded by a 2021-22 Andrew Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar grant in support of “Race, Precarity and Privilege: Migration in a Global Context" at UC Santa Barbara. For more information on this interdisciplinary collaboration and Co- PIs see: https://raceandmigrationucsb.org.