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The Columbia Collective is a group of emerging female/trans incarcerated/formerly incarcerated artists exercising creative freedom across states of confinement, named for the maximum juvenile secure center in which they lived and worked. The group is currently comprised of six artists; Marshmallow, Jay, Juste-A, Marilynn, Torei and Toni, and was founded in 2020 by artist Maggie Hazen, which she co-directs with her curatorial partner, Sofia Thieu D’Amico.
From 2019 to 2021, the group met weekly for arts instruction based on a graduate-school MFA model, in which artists cultivate their own visions and projects, outside of an established curriculum with grades and assignments. For the past five years, Hazen has cultivated artist communities in other NY state prison facilities, actively working with abolition-minded community partners to connect the Collective to resources and transitional support post-incarceration through fundraising, storytelling, and mentorship.
Since the formation of the Columbia Collective, the group has exhibited and collaborated with Pioneer Works, Red Hook, NY; the Moxi Children’s Museum, Santa Barbara, CA; Siena College, NY; Boarder Patrol, Bakersfield, CA; Shandaken Projects, NY; The Athens Cultural Center, Catskill, NY; and Girls Inc., Santa Barbara, CA.
JUVENILE JUSTICE ARTS & MEDIA NETWORK INC. 501c3
From 2019 to 2021, the group met weekly for arts instruction based on a graduate-school MFA model, in which artists cultivate their own visions and projects, outside of an established curriculum with grades and assignments. For the past five years, Hazen has cultivated artist communities in other NY state prison facilities, actively working with abolition-minded community partners to connect the Collective to resources and transitional support post-incarceration through fundraising, storytelling, and mentorship.
Since the formation of the Columbia Collective, the group has exhibited and collaborated with Pioneer Works, Red Hook, NY; the Moxi Children’s Museum, Santa Barbara, CA; Siena College, NY; Boarder Patrol, Bakersfield, CA; Shandaken Projects, NY; The Athens Cultural Center, Catskill, NY; and Girls Inc., Santa Barbara, CA.
JUVENILE JUSTICE ARTS & MEDIA NETWORK INC. 501c3
