Keynotes

Suzanne Lacy is the Founding Chair of the Graduate Public Practice Program at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles. Her installations, video, and performance focus on social themes. A recent project in Quito, Ecuador on the subject of male violence was held in a bull-fight arena; and Between the Door and the Street took over a Brooklyn street. Also known for her writing, Lacy edited Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art, and is author of Leaving Art: Writings on Performance, Politics, and Publics, 1974–2007. Lacy received a PhD from Robert Gordon University in 2013 and is currently writing a book on 10 years of projects with youth in Oakland, California.

Through her activism and scholarship over the last decades, Angela Davis has been deeply involved in our nation’s quest for social justice.  Her work as an educator – both at the university level and in the larger public sphere – has always emphasized the importance of building communities of struggle for economic, racial, and gender equality. She is Distinguished Professor Emerita of History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies at UC Santa Cruz, and the author of nine books, including her most recent book of essays called The Meaning of Freedom.