Patrisse Cullors
Artist and Abolitionist
Patrisse Cullors is a New York Times bestselling author, educator, artist, and abolitionist from Los Angeles, CA. Her work has been featured at The Broad, The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, LTD Gallery, Crystal Bridges Museum, Second Home West Hollywood, The Fowler Museum, Frieze LA, The Hammer Museum, Vashon Center for the Arts, Joe’s Pub, Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center, and a host of theaters, galleries, and museums across the globe.
Cullors launched a ground-breaking Social and Environmental Arts Practice MFA program at Prescott College where she served as the Founding Director for two years. She is the co-founder of the Crenshaw Dairy Mart and has been on the frontlines of abolitionist movement building with Black Lives Matter, Justice LA, Dignity and Power Now and Reform LA jails. Her current work and practice is focusing on “Abolitionist Aesthetics,” a term she has advanced and popularized to help challenge artists and cultural workers to aestheticize abolition. Patrisse is also the founder of The Center For Art and Abolition- a trailblazing nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering abolitionist artists and leveraging the transformative power of art to catalyze social change.
Patrisse has won numerous awards for her art and activism. In September 2021, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved Patrisse’s appointment to serve as one of three Second District Arts Commissioners. Patrisse’s mission is to invite all of us to grow towards abolition through intergenerational healing work that centers love, collective care, and art.
​Photo credit : Jamal-Akil Marshall
Megan Wolpert Dobkin
Co-writer / Co- Producer
Megan Wolpert Dobkin produces film, television and music videos with her partner, David Dobkin (Wedding Crashers, Eurovision: The Story Of Fire Saga, The Judge). She has produced two of the top ten highest streamed music videos of all time, Maroon 5’s Sugar and Girls Like You. Her development credits also include Girl, Interrupted, Walk The Line, The Recruit, The Vow, and two of the Scream franchise movies.
In addition to working closely with writers on her film/tv slate, she also stares at her own damn blinking cursor. Megan’s flash fiction and poetry has appeared in over 30 literary publications, including The McNeese Review, Cultural Weekly, Word Riot, Crack The Spine, Cliterature, and Chrome Baby (where her piece “Night Waking” was nominated for Best Of The Net).
However, of all the professional lanes Megan juggles, she is most proud of the eleven years she has spent as an anti-carceral organizer. Dobkin (and GIDA’s own Kristina Lear) spent three years following the lead of Patrisse Cullors in the LA Jail Fight - primarily organizing white communities to support the cancelation of a 3.5 billion dollar jail expansion project, and fighting to have that money re-allocated towards community based alternatives to incarceration (it was a win and the plan was cancelled in 2019). Dobkin and Cullors have also spent the last two years organizing together in Black, Jewish and Black & Jewish coalition spaces.
Patrisse Cullors is a New York Times bestselling author, educator, artist, and abolitionist from Los Angeles, CA. Her work has been featured at The Broad, The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, LTD Gallery, Crystal Bridges Museum, Second Home West Hollywood, The Fowler Museum, Frieze LA, The Hammer Museum, Vashon Center for the Arts, Joe’s Pub, Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center, and a host of theaters, galleries, and museums across the globe.
Cullors launched a ground-breaking Social and Environmental Arts Practice MFA program at Prescott College where she served as the Founding Director for two years. She is the co-founder of the Crenshaw Dairy Mart and has been on the frontlines of abolitionist movement building with Black Lives Matter, Justice LA, Dignity and Power Now and Reform LA jails. Her current work and practice is focusing on “Abolitionist Aesthetics,” a term she has advanced and popularized to help challenge artists and cultural workers to aestheticize abolition. Patrisse is also the founder of The Center For Art and Abolition- a trailblazing nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering abolitionist artists and leveraging the transformative power of art to catalyze social change.
Patrisse has won numerous awards for her art and activism. In September 2021, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved Patrisse’s appointment to serve as one of three Second District Arts Commissioners. Patrisse’s mission is to invite all of us to grow towards abolition through intergenerational healing work that centers love, collective care, and art.
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Photo credit : Jamal-Akil Marshall