Bakersfield College Receives Grant Award from California Humanities
Thursday, May 21, 2020
California Humanities has announced the recent round of Humanities For All Quick Grant awards. Bakersfield College has been awarded $5,000 for its project entitled "Portraits in Their Own Words."
The Humanities For All Quick Grant is a competitive grant program of California Humanities that supports locally-initiated public humanities projects. These projects respond to the needs of Californians, encourage greater public participation in humanities programming, particularly by new and/or underserved audiences, and promote understanding and empathy among all our state's peoples, in order to cultivate a thriving democracy.
Over the course of the “Portraits in Their Own Words” project, select Bakersfield College faculty will mentor a group of art students and formerly incarcerated student writers as they create an exhibit that features portraits of the student writers paired with their autobiographical narratives.
"I hope that this will challenge the stigma associated with past imprisonment while encouraging an open dialogue about incarceration and life after it,” said project writer and director Andrew Bond, a Professor of English at Bakersfield College. “This project will allow the public to engage with stories and images representing the experiences of BC students who have been previously imprisoned. The project's co-directors, Professors Shawn Taro Newsom and Kristopher Stallworth, and I also want to highlight the resources available to formerly incarcerated students at BC and other institutions of higher education.”
Public readings and viewings of the artwork of “Portraits in Their Own Words” will take place at the Levan Center for the Humanities, UC Berkeley, and the Bakersfield Museum of Art next year.
“These projects will bring the complexity and diversity of California to light in new ways that will engage Californians from every part of our state, and, will help us all understand each other better,” said Julie Fry, President & CEO of California Humanities. “We congratulate the grantees whose projects will promote understanding and provide insight into a wide range of topics, issues, and experiences.”
A complete list of all Humanities For All Quick Grants can be found on the California Humanities website.
About California Humanities:
California Humanities, a nonprofit partner of the National Endowment of the Humanities, promotes the humanities - focused on ideas, conversation and learning - as relevant, meaningful ways to understand the human condition and connect us to each other in order to help strengthen California. California Humanities has provided grants and programs across the state since 1975. To learn more visit the California Humanities website, or follow California Humanities on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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Bakersfield College receives Grant Award from California Humanities
