Carceral Media Ecologies—and How to Break Them
Organized by Pooja Rangan, Visiting Scholar, Visualizing Abolition, UCSCm Carceral Media Ecologies—and How to Break Them is the culminating in-person event in a series of conversations examining how contemporary documentary forms participate in both the making and unmaking of carceral power. This symposium brings together organizers, filmmakers, scholars and artists—both with and without experiences of mass incarceration—for a daylong conversation on disrupting the carceral state and its media ecologies across multiple scales of intervention: from feminist organizing and prisoner-initiated programs to incarcerated media production, participatory defense, counterforensic art, and legal advocacy.
Symposium Program
9:30 am onward – Coffee + Pastries
10:00–10:15 – Welcome (Rachel Nelson + Pooja Rangan)
10:15–11:15 – Keynote: Gina Dent
Reflections on the work of feminist organizing in shaping an abolitionist media imaginary
11:15–11:30 – Break
11:30–1:00 – Panel: Fugitive Media (Keisha Knight, Thanh Tran, TBD), moderated by Rachel Nelson
A panel on media produced behind bars and the activism involved in building oppositional circuits of visibility and solidarity
1:00–2:00 – Lunch
2:00–3:30 – Panel: Counterforensic Advocacy (Ashraf Hamdan, Silicon Valley Debug, Sharon Daniel), moderated by Pooja Rangan
A panel on decarceral legal and policy interventions, including participatory defense, exoneree media, and counterforensic art
3:30–3:45 – Break
3:45–4:45 – Conversation: Adamu Chan + Gilda Sheppard, moderated by Gina Dent
A conversation on the challenges of pursuing anti-carceral aesthetics and the political stakes of speaking outside the carceral frame
4:45–5:15 – Reception