Sarah Klein’s SUPERBLOOM at The Great Highway Gallery. Djerassi alum Sarah Klein's solo show, SUPERBLOOM, is coming to The Great Highway Gallery in San Francisco from November 19–December 18, 2022. The installation expands on the ancient method of storytelling using hand shadows as Sarah Klein harnesses her skills as an animator and printmaker to create a vivid display of patterns and motion. Read more.

Alison Moritsugu exhibits Moons and Internment Stones. Djerassi alumna, Alison Moritsugu, exhibits Moons and Internment Stones at Brattleboro Museum and Art Center in Vermont from October 22, 2022 - February 12, 2023. The exhibit features paintings of the moon and of stones collected by the Alison’s grandfather in the Santa Fe Internment Camp during World War II. Read more.

Mary Gilliland’s The Devil’s Fools available on November 9th. Mary Gilliland, Djerassi alumna ('11), is the author of two award-winning poetry collections: The Ruined Walled Castle Garden (2020) and The Devil’s Fools (2022). Celebrate her newest collection, The Devil's Fools with a free online event on November 9th at 7PM. Subverting received traditions, embellishing mythic figures, the lyrics of The Devil’s Fools speak to and for those wanting heaven: modern pilgrims, medieval masons; seafarer, axe murderer, alcoholic; daughter, spouse, sibling, mother; a woman on pause, a monarch of the underworld, Eve stepping out past Eden. The poems represent wild and delicious creaturely delusion, deception, vigor and joy. Read more.

Johanna Baruch’s one-night site-specific art installation in San Francisco. Former Djerassi Artist-Trustee Johanna Baruch will be creating a one-night site-specific art installation for Grace Cathedral in San Francisco during Veriditas’ Women’s Dream Quest event, November 18th-19th, 2022. Her Cosmos Series paintings will be reproduced on banners as large as 8’ x 5’ and suspended from the 65’ clearstory levels to create an immersive environment, shepherding participants through their own inner universes. Johanna’s work is inspired by the beauty, majesty and mystery of the Hubble Space Telescope and the new JWST imagery, using them as launching points for exploring the infinite space and luminosity of the cosmos through her own inner landscape. The windows into deep space that we are privileged to witness today through these new technologies connect us to our ancestral fascination with the night sky and our place within the cosmos. Using a unique technique she developed of painting in multiple layers of translucent colored glazes, Johanna’s paintings echo that visual sensation of seeing light and spectra through the dimensions of space. Johanna Baruch is a painter who splits her time between San Francisco and Inverness, CA, where the big, star filled skies inspire and give her a direct sensation of the expansive cosmos around us. She has exhibited nationally in galleries, art fairs and museums. She has served on the Boards of The California College of the Arts, the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, and the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco. Read more.

Mabel Poblet exhibits Where Oceans Meet at Chanel Nexus Hall, Japan. Mabel Poblet, Djerassi alumna ('19), presents her first solo-exhibition in Japan. Where Oceans Meet will feature new works from the series My Autumn, Homeland, and Travel Diary, as well as the video installation Sublimation (from the series Buoyancy). Where Oceans Meet is an invitation to get acquainted with one of Mabel Poblet's cherished themes, water, which is also a common denominator between Cuba and Japan, and the uniqueness of cultures where islands co-exist with the sea. Read more.

The Passing of Bruce Johnson It is with heavy hearts that we mourn the passing of artist and sculptor Bruce Johnson, a beloved member of the Djerassi Resident Artists Program community. Bruce was known for his large-scale sculptures that blended organic and industrial materials to create stunning pieces that were beautiful, spiritual, and thought-provoking, such as his recent immersive installation The Poetry House. We are grateful to have experienced his artistic impact firsthand with his iconic sculpture Torii, which he constructed here at the program in 1983-1984. Bruce drew inspiration from the natural world and the beauty of the Bay Area, and it is in these landscapes that his brilliance is immortalized. Bruce's passing is a tremendous loss for the artistic community, and his contributions to the world of sculpture will be sorely missed. We extend our deepest sympathies to his family, friends, and loved ones during this difficult time. Read more

Exploratorium After Dark: Thought and Action Join us at the Exploratorium After Dark to discover the experimental documentary "Stitching the Future with Clues", by Djerassi Program alumna Allison Holt, which centers neurodivergence as a roadmap for how the mind makes meaning. "Stitching the Future with Clues" is an expanded cinema, neurodivergent-futurist manifesto, using audio and visual feedback and animated diagrams beamed through a system of water lenses. Looking at neurodivergence as a way of knowing, through a cybernetic frame, it combines animated diagrams, video and audio feedback processes, and expanded media techniques to consider feedback systems as a medium for understanding the sensing, processing, and exchanging of information happening not just in human minds and brains, but within and between all scales of intelligent life. Allison Leigh Holt is a neurodivergent artist and a Fulbright Scholar using techniques of expanded cinema and the Light and Space movement to model various manifestations of mind. After the performance, stay for a dialogue with Allison and neuroscientist Clifford Saron. Can’t attend in person? Join us via livestream! Get your ticket today!

this is my body: a storytelling showcase On June 17th, come witness 'this is my body,' a one-time and unforgettable storytelling experience that centers women of color and their relationship to their bodies. "this is my body" is a storytelling program designed specifically for women of color seeking to reclaim narratives of their self and body. Over the past two months, the cohort has shaped original pieces through writing and performance workshops. Come and experience the stories that have come out of our storytelling program during a one-time, unforgettable afternoon! Tickets on sale now. Get tickets today!

Camille Dungy on “Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden” Djerassi Program alumna Camille Dungy discusses new book "Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden" with Melissa Block from NPR. In "Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden," National Book Critics Circle Criticism finalist Camille Dungy describes her years-long project to transform her weed-filled, water-hogging, monochromatic lawn in suburban Fort Collins, Colo., into a pollinator's paradise, packed instead with vibrant, drought-tolerant native plants. This seminal work expands how we talk about the natural world and the environment as Dungy diversifies her garden to reflect her heritage. Read more

Domestic Light by Ian Winters "Domestic Light" is a year long time-lapse media art project by Djerassi Program alum Ian Winters launching June 21st, 2023 "Domestic Light" explores the disparity between how natural light is perceived and mediated, and the nature of our networked relations. The project offers a new way of noticing how our bodies build the notion of home and the passage of time—based on the qualities of light where we live—and how mediated images of nature are sensitizing us as a species. "Domestic Light" fulfills the urgent need to build community networks, and supports the role of artists in cultivating the observation of one's own environmental transformations. At the project end, its unique structured data set will be archives at the University of Sussex Humanities Lab and will be available for public use and interpretation by artists and researchers. Learn more

the NETWORK project the NETWORK project: A Dialogue on Building Resilience in our Nature Bodies is an embodied dialogue about nature, humans, and our interconnection. This conversation will bring together local and non-local experts who have sustained relationships with researching and learning together with the natural world, through embodied work and practices. Our time together will include a dialogue, embodied activities, and a brief screening of a video featuring the NETWORK project’s premiere at Djerassi Resident Artists Program in the Santa Cruz mountains in July 2022. The panelists include Theresa Harlan, Ken Otter, Diane Butler, and Claire Peaslee, with a movement score offered from Jennifer Monson/iLAND. The dialogue will be moderated by Krista DeNio, Artistic Director of MovingGround. RSVP today!

How choreographer Sidra Bell is blazing a trail for next generation Groundbreaking dancer and choreographer Sidra Bell talks making history at the New York City Ballet and blazing a trail for future generations with TODAY contributor Ally Love. Watch her full interview now!

The Spaces Between with Nina Haft & Company The Spaces Between is an interactive installation of dance and sound exploring how our spatial choices weave a web of interdependence. What drives human pack behavior? How do touch, distance and mutuality communicate belonging? In THE SPACES BETWEEN, finely-tuned structured improvisation is live-mixed with set choreography, digging deep while dissolving barriers between maker and witness, performers and audiences. The audience is invited to physically enter the work – literally to position themselves inside it to consider what is revealed or obscured. No two performances will be the same. Join Djerassi Resident Artist Program alum Nina Haft & Co for the company’s first full length work since COVID emerged. Blending personal gestures, unplanned partnering, athleticism and pedestrian vocabulary, THE SPACES BETWEEN is our practice of belonging to each other in these times of uncertainty, our candid, sensual and unmediated movement speaking to bodies in love and grief. Collaborating artists: Nina Haft | Rose Huey | Jennifer Twilley Jerum | Nico Ortiz Maimon | Frances Sedayao | Jesse Wiener | with Composer/Musician emma tome October 14, 15, 21 and 22 at 3pm Western Sky Studio 2525 Eighth Street, #13A Berkeley, CA 94710 Wheelchair accessible. ASL Interpreter (date tba)