CBA & SDSU Present: Learning to Fly, A Panel Discussion About Incarcerated Artists

San Diego State University presents a panel discussion on the transformative and restorative power of creative expression—through the mediums of exhibition, dance, and artists’ books—for artists experiencing incarceration. The panelists will also touch on an artists’ book collaboration between SDSU students and Prison Arts Collective.

About the Panelists

Corina Reynolds, Executive Director at Center for Book Arts

• Corina Reynolds (she/her) is the Executive Director of Center for Book Arts in New York City. At CBA, she has focused on connecting artists across distance and time through a diverse program of exhibitions, panels, conferences, and classes. Her passion for the art of the book has led her to curate exhibitions, organize conferences and panels, publish books, and teach about the book arts in the US and abroad. She has an MFA in textiles from Cranbrook Academy of Art and, in 2012, she co-founded Small Editions, an artists’ book publisher and curatorial residency program in Brooklyn, NY with the goal to expand the public understanding of artist’s books. During her time at Small Editions she published over 30 artist’s books which are now held in some of the most prestigious public and private collections across the globe, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Over the years she has overseen the production of hundreds of books including books about artists’ books, design, architecture, photography, and contemporary art. In 2021, she and two collaborators founded Book Art Review, a new serial publication that ventures to develop, diversify, and propel critical discourse in the book arts.

Michele Burgess, Lecturer of Book Art at SDSU School of Art and Design

• Michele Burgess works in book arts, printmaking, painting, and sculpture. She is the director of Brighton Press and collaborates with other artists and poets on projects that involve the book as an art medium. Burgess’s artists’ books are housed in over seventy-five public collections across the country and have been exhibited at the Musee d’Art Americain in Giverny, France; the National Museum of Women in the Arts; Fresno Art Museum; Cranbrook Art Museum; Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles; Oceanside Museum of Art; and the Mingei Museum in San Diego. She teaches in the art departments at San Diego State University (where she also serves as a Faculty Associate for the Prison Arts Collective) and the University of San Diego.

Alan Mobley, Executive Director at Center for Transformative Justice & Executive Director at SDSU Project Rebound

• Alan Mobley, PhD (University of California-Irvine, 2001) is an activist, writer, researcher, and professor of Criminal Justice and Public Affairs at San Diego State University. He first became interested in criminal justice issues in 1984 when he was arrested on narcotics charges. While enjoying a decade of correctional services in several US federal prisons, he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in economics and sociology, respectively, read widely, and studied eastern philosophy and yoga. His scholarly publications include journal articles, book chapters and research reports on a variety of topics in penal and restorative justice, including the influential monograph, Unlocking America (JFA Institute, 2007). His university teaching and professional writings explore the many dimensions of mass incarceration and justice system involvement, particularly the experience of prison and its aftermath. As an activist and researcher, he is co-founder of several justice-related initiatives, including Convict Criminology, a Division of the American Society of Criminology that centers the voices of people with personal histories of justice-involvement; All of Us or None, the US civil rights initiative that launched the “Ban the Box” movement, significantly reducing barriers to employment and improved quality of life for formerly incarcerated people; and the Project Rebound Consortium of the California State University, an outreach and support initiative providing pathways to college for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated students. At his home campus of San Diego State, he is Founding Executive Director of SDSU Project Rebound and the SDSU Center for Transformative Justice, which aims, among other things, to provide deeply experiential learning opportunities for students, and to establish bachelor’s degree programs at local prisons. Dr. Mobley is a certified Council trainer (restorative justice practices) in the tradition of the Ojai Foundation (ojaifoundation.org), and co-founder of Center for Council’s Inmate Council Program, which offers peer-facilitated circle dialogue trainings to incarcerated men and women in over 20 California prisons (centerforcouncil.org). Although always collaborative, his work has been honored with several awards, including for Exceptional Service (2018), Most Influential Faculty (2017), and Excellence in Research (2001).

James Philip, Student at San Diego State University & Project Rebound Representative

• An advocate for social justice reform, and a returned citizen, James is making way for the next generation. He is studying at San Diego State University for a major in psychology and a minor in criminal justice.

Annie Buckley, Founder and Director of Prison Arts Collective & Director of Institute for the Arts, Humanities, and Social Justice at SDSU

• Annie Buckley is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, award-winning educator, and the founder and director of the statewide initiative, Prison Arts Collective. Buckley’s practice embraces image, text, and participatory art. Her critical writing has been widely published in leading contemporary art journals including Artforum, Art in America, Artillery, KCET Artbound, and she is a contributing editor to Los Angeles Review of Books, for which she writes the series, Art Inside, about teaching art in prisons. Buckley is a Professor of Visual Studies and the Director of the Institute for the Arts, Humanities, and Social Justice of Visual Studies at San Diego State University. She has a BA from UC Berkeley and MFA from Otis College of Art and Design.

Jess Humphrey MFA, CLMA, RSMT, Faculty Associate at Prison Arts Collective & Associate Professor of Dance, School of Music & Dance at SDSU

• Humphrey makes dances to leverage the profound healing, developmental, and spiritual potentials of human beings moving together, attending to space, time, and bodies, and deepening their relationships with each other and the world through the tenderness and vulnerability elicited by the creative process. She has co-created and/or performed in several evening-length dances with Gabor Tompa, Sara Shelton Mann, Guillermo Gomez-Pena’s La Pocha Nostra, and LIVE. Her collaborations with Eric Geiger and Leslie Seiters span over a decade and multiple contexts including pause, a trio by Deborah Hay. A Registered Somatic Movement Therapist, she holds an MFA in dance from the University of Utah, and certifications in Laban Movement Analysis and Integral Facilitation, and continues to learn through teaching at SDSU where she researches trauma-sensitive and anti-oppression approaches to dancemaking and performance. A Faculty Associate with the Prison Arts Collective, where her work in embodiment and facilitation support their arts education endeavors with incarcerated participants. jesshumphrey.com