| Kesa Kivel is a
Los Angeles-based artist as well as an educator and activist engaged in social
justice issues, especially those concerning girls and women. Since 2003 she has
volunteered to teach feminist issues to middle school girls at the YWCA in
Santa Monica, California, offering a broad-based curriculum in an interactive
format. Kesa's Girl House Art Project (2006) was inspired by Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro's 1972 "Womanhouse" art installation. In Underground Railroad: Ama's Journey to Freedom (2010), 34 middle-school girls were challenged to imagine what slavery might have felt like to one African girl, and then to link slavery in the past with racism today. Kesa is currently working on a film about the project. Creating art is as important to Kesa as creating curricula. Using fabric, paint, and handmade paper, she makes mandala-inspired forms that provide her with insight and direction for her spiritual journey. Some photos of her artwork can be found at www.scwca.org (click on Artists' Registry). Prior to teaching a feminist arts curriculum, Kesa taught poetry to foster teens in a residential facility, as well as to youth incarcerated in juvenile halls and at a probation camp. For over a decade Kesa has worked with Families to Amend California Three Strikes (FACTS), a non-profit organization dedicated to changing the unjust Three Strikes law. Kesa has
worked as a social worker in London, and lived for three years in Asia. 2002 "Friends of FACTS Award" for activism with Families to Amend the Three Strikes law. 2000 "Operation Read Award" in recognition of
outstanding service in support of education and literacy for probation youth. |
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