BCaT Lab

From workshops to thought-provoking discussions and a live poetry reading, this series explores the intersection of AI, public policy, and and how Black feminist thought can reshape the future of tech.

📅 April 29 – May 1
📍 BCaT Lab, Skinner Building (Room 3115)

Join us for a Digital Zine Workshop where creativity meets storytelling led by Dr. Sharla Berry! Whether you’re new to zines or already love creating, come explore how to share your voice in bold, meaningful ways.

Tuesday, March 24
1–3 PM
Zoom & Skinner 3115
Lunch provided after!

Join us at the BCaT Lab for “Re/claiming the Archive: Autonomy through Independent Archival Practice and Collective Cultural Memory. This workshop explores how independent Black archives and digital projects are reshaping how cultural memory is preserved and shared.

Featuring writer and archivist Keondra Bills Freemyn, participants will reflect on their own archives and learn digital tools that support the creation and stewardship of historical documentation.

🗓 March 10
⏰ 12–2 PM
📍 Skinner 3115 + Zoom

Come to the BCaT Lab tomorrow or join us on Zoom from 3-5pm to learn about docu-poetics and how to the platform Twine!

This informative workshop will be led by Dorothy Santos Ph.D., Assistant Professor of teaching, art, justice, and digital media at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Centering Black memory, Black women’s writing, and contemporary cultural production. 📚✨
Writer, archivist, and co-director of Black Lunch Table, keondra bills-freemyn brings her expertise in radical archiving to the Art and the Archive panel. Her work lifts up Black visual artists and expands the literary canon through Black Women Writers Project.

Join her as she speaks on archiving as care, resistance, and cultural continuity.
📅 Wed, Dec 3rd • 🕒 2–3 PM • 📍 Skinner 3115

Where hybridity, spirituality, and cultural memory collide. 🌈🌀
Visual artist Amber Robles-Gordon brings her powerful assemblages and mixed-media installations to this year’s Art and the Archive panel. Her work reveals the complexities of race, gender, and temporality—illuminating what often goes unseen.

Experience her vision as she discusses Black art as a tool for reimagining and reclaiming the archive.
📅 Wed, Dec 3rd • 🕒 2–3 PM • 📍 Skinner 3115

Honoring the everyday, the intimate, and the ancestral. 🎨✨
We’re excited to welcome Maïa Walcott as an Artist in Residence and panelist for Art and the Archive. Her multidisciplinary work—spanning sculpture, painting, illustration, and photography—transforms Black British Caribbean life and family history into vivid archival record.

Join us as she explores how art can preserve memory, lineage, and ritual.
📅 Wed, Dec 3rd • 🕒 2–3 PM • 📍 Skinner 3115

✨ The BCaT Lab Presents: Art and the Archive ✨

Join us for an inspiring in-conversation with artists + archivists Amber Robles-Gordon, keondra bills-freemyn, and Maïa Walcott as we explore the power of Black art, archival practice, and collective memory.

🗓 Wednesday, Dec. 3rd
🍽 Lunch at 1pm
🎤 Panel from 2–3pm
📍 Skinner Building, Room 3115

We’ll dive into themes of critical fabulation, filling archival silences, and the intersections of art + the Black diasporic experience.

Plus—drop by the lab anytime Dec 1–4, 10am–5pm to contribute to our collaborative mural project! 🎨🖤

🎟 RSVP with the link in our bio or scan the QR code!

Tomorrow at 12:30 tune into this insightful talk from the BCaT Lab’s Associate Director, Dr. Rianna Walcott and Jennifer Turner about Artificial Appropriation. Link in bio 🔗

10-12pm
Wednesday, November 5th
Skinner 3115 & Zoom

Join us at the BCaT Lab to learn about the application for the Automating Black Joy Microgrant! Automating Black Joy is a project that points a critical lens toward the future of AI. This event is open to all students and faculty, particularly those seeking guidance on how to proceed with their application, either as an individual applicant or as part of a group application. We will discuss the microgrant application process, team formation, and the next steps.