Art gallery brings students closer to incarcerated LA youth
UCLA students wrote responses to the poetry and prose submitted by incarcerated youth at Camp Fred Miller for the display “Write Back” in Kerckhoff Art Gallery. The event was organized by the Student Committee for the Arts (SCA), the student branch of the world renowned Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA. The committee provides student tickets to CAP UCLA events, making available some of the best seats in the house at amazing prices. SCA works frequently with the CAP UCLA staff in departments ranging from Education to Artist Relations, continually promoting the performing arts on campus. SCA is also proud to produce its own series of shows that bring great artists and events to students, in addition to showcasing the various talents of UCLA Student Artists.
In a short poem, Diamond penned that love is like a bullet wound that is barely healing.
The teenage boy did not intend to write about love in the context of violence; it was an organic thought. But Diamond felt comfortable using a violent metaphor, his mentor said. Growing up around guns made him feel like a winner until he reached a juvenile camp, Diamond wrote in his prose.
One of the inmates at Camp Fred Miller in Malibu, California, Diamond submitted his poetry and prose for display in Kerckhoff Art Gallery. Four UCLA student groups and a nonprofit called Critical Resistance Los Angeles organized “Write Back,” a gallery show that runs until Saturday. UCLA students wrote and drew responses to the work of the incarcerated youth in the form of stories and letters Thursday evening.
Social activism often takes stories out of communities without giving them anything in return, said Colleen Hamilton-Lecky, the organizer of the event from the Student Committee for the Arts. The event aims to establish a reciprocal relationship between students at UCLA and the camp by creating an artistic dialogue, said the second-year world arts and cultures student. — Ishita Gambhir, Apr. 14
Read the full article at the Daily Bruin website.