What does it look like when our creative process is driven by disability and community? How does the work develop, change, and differ from the already-established ways of making? In this talk, Jay Afrisando will share his recent and upcoming works focusing on how disability and community of diverse bodies drive the ways such works are created. The results include forms and methodologies that continuously evolve and possess an antidisciplinary nature, offering a new aesthetics that prioritizes humanity while questioning what it means to be an artist and what arts truly mean and represent.

Jay Afrisando is a composer, multimedia artist, researcher, and educator. A neurodivergent, he works on aural diversity, disability, accessibility, and decolonizing arts through multisensory and antidisciplinary practice, manifested in music-theater, film, installation, witty storytelling, and other genre-bending experiences. He is a 2024-25 DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Fellow and Assistant Professor of Music at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His collaborative exhibition, “In Conversation,” curated by Kate Brehme and in collaboration with numerous artists living in Berlin and other cities, is currently on display at Galerie im Turm, Berlin, until November 23, 2025.

Fall 2025 COLLOQUIUM SERIES

THE CENTER FOR CULTURAL STUDIES hosts a weekly Wednesday colloquium featuring work-in-progress by faculty & visitors. We are pleased to announce our Fall 2025 Series. Sessions begin promptly at 12:15 PM and end at 1:30 PM (PST) in Humanities Building 1, Room 210.

Staff assistance is provided by The Humanities Institute.