Borderbus: A Community Conversation about Migration, Art, and Social Justice

Join recent U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera and Santa Cruz book artist Felicia Rice as they explore the powerful role that poetry and art can play in conversations about the pressing issues of immigration, belonging, and home.

Herrera and Rice will be joined in this community conversation by representatives of local groups working on social justice and immigration issues. Connect with community organizers and contribute to a collaborative piece collecting community stories. The conversation will be facilitated by UC Santa Cruz Literature professor Kirsten Silva Gruesz.

The evening will mark the publication of Borderbus, a new book project created by Rice in collaboration with Herrera. Herrera’s poem by the same name, which forms the foundation for Rice’s work, features a whispered conversation between two women held at the border between Mexico and the United States on an ICE bus. Rice, whose works build bridges between art forms, cultures, artists/audiences, and technologies, collaborates with visual artists, performing artists, and writers to create book structures in which word and image meet and merge.

Co-sponsors include: UC Santa Cruz University Library, Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History, The Humanities Institute at UC Santa Cruz, Moving Parts Press.