UMass Amherst Announces Fall 2024 Art, Sustainability, and Activism Event Lineup

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UMass Amherst has announced the fall 2024 schedule of events for Art Sustainability Activism, an interdisciplinary series devoted to illuminating ecological crises through the lens of science and art.

A collaboration between the Fine Arts Center, the MFA for Poets and Writers Program, and the School of Earth and Sustainability, ASA creates deliberate opportunities to connect artists, scientists, and changemakers to learn from one another and, together, reckon with and create meaningful solutions surrounding climate change. 

This year's schedule is as follows.

Kevin Young: Reading - Abolishing Fossil Fuels: Lessons from Movements That Won

Wednesday, Oct. 2, at 6 p.m. 
Bromery Center for the Arts Lobby

Historian and Department of History professor Kevin Young is the author of Abolishing Fossil Fuels: Lessons from Movements That Won and a member of the UMass Environmental and Social Action Movement (ESAM), where he helps coordinate a committee pressuring UMass to cut ties with the financial institutions that fund the fossil fuel industry.

During this reading, workshop, and discussion, Young will be in conversation with Marcello “Raven” Federico, Divestment Organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network, and April Merleaux, Research Manager, Climate and Energy team for the Rainforest Action Network.

Craig Santos Perez Master Class

Tuesday, Oct. 8, at 4 p.m. 
University Museum of Contemporary Art (UMCA)

Students from the Five Colleges will join poets Craig Santo Perez and Abigail Chabitnoy for this generative master class. Craig Santos Perez is the co-editor of eight anthologies and the author of seven books of poetry and the academic monograph, Navigating Chamoru Poetry: Indigeneity, Aesthetics, and Decolonization. Perez’ most recent collection received the National Book Award in 2023.

Live Lit: Graduate Student Interdisciplinary Reading

Tuesday, Oct. 8, at 6 p.m.
University Museum of Contemporary Art (UMCA)

UMass MFA Poets and Writers students and graduate students across departments will come together for an evening of sharing.

ASA Interdisciplinary Panel Discussion 

Wednesday, Oct. 9, at 3 p.m.
Bromery Center for the Arts Lobby

Join featured artist Craig Santos Perez and others in this meeting of minds working at the intersection of climate change, science, literature, performing arts, and social justice. The panel will be moderated by Sylvia Cifuentes, assistant professor of environmental and social equity and justice in the Department of Environmental Studies at Mount Holyoke College.

Craig Santos Perez: Reading and Reception

Wednesday, Oct. 9, at 6 p.m.
Old Chapel, Great Hall

Craig Santos Perez is a native Chamoru from the Pacific Island of Guåhan/Guam. He is the co-founder of Ala Press, co-star of the poetry album Undercurrent (Hawai’i Dub Machine, 2011), and author of two collections of poetry: from unincorporated territory [hacha] (Tinfish Press, 2008) and from unincorporated territory [saina] (Omnidawn Publishing, 2010), a finalist for the LA Times 2010 Book Prize for Poetry and the winner of the 2011 PEN Center USA Literary Award for Poetry. He is an Assistant Professor in the English Department at the University of Hawai’i, Manoa, where he teaches Pacific literature and creative writing.

Writers at Work

Thursday, Oct. 10, at 6 p.m.
E470 South College            

Writers at Work showcases the way writers and other artists find careers in which to apply their skills, and the ways art lovers bring the arts into their lives.  Editors, publishers, activists, booksellers, arts administrators and other professionals share how their careers and their love of literary and other arts intersect. 

Jason Daniel Schwartz MFA'05 is a political strategist working on campaigns for climate and economic justice. Schwartz co-leads the US political team for The Sunrise Project, which pushes for better state and federal climate and labor policy—and to defeat policies that enact denial of climate change and the energy transition. 

ASA was launched in 2019 through interdisciplinary seed grant funding provided by the Provost’s Office.