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.
Featured image: Jay Afrisando, a medium-skin-toned male with bunned hair, sits on outdoor neighborhood concrete steps in a serious pose, with his fingers clasped and arms on his thighs. He wears dark blue jeans, a light gray sweatshirt, and black shoes. Photo: © DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program / Diana Pfammatter.
Date | Time
November 12, 2025 | 12:15 PM – 1:30 PM [PST]
Free and open to the public
Venue | Location
Humanities Building 1, Room 210
University of California, Santa Cruz