Rachel Nelson – författare

Echoes is a unique book of poems written by Lisbeth Thom and her granddaughter, Rachel Nelson. One summer Lisbeth wrote a poem and sent it to eleven-year old Rachel in Eden, Prairie, Minnesota. She asked Rachel to read her poem and respond with a poem of her own. Rachel wrote a poem on a similar subject and also sent back a new poem and asked Lisbeth, her grandmother in Savannah, Georgia, to respond to her poem and then send Rachel another poem. That is how, Echoes the book of poems, began. They bounced their poems back and forth across the country until they had fifty poems ready for publication.Since publication, teachers have used Echoes in classrooms as a teaching tool. They use the idea of taking one person''s poem to inspire a second person to write a poem on a similar subject. The poems in Echoes are written on many different subjects. They are creative, thought-provoking, family oriented, fun, and funny. Many of the poems let the reader travel inside the author''s mind. These poems can help students learn to enjoy reading and writing poetry. In Echoes, the generation gap between grandmother and granddaughter makes for an interesting contrast in viewpoint.The poems are excellent for reading to younger children.

A collaborative exploration of the vulnerabilities of marine mammals in the age of climate changeWeather and the Whale is a unique exhibition catalog, combining artworks, critical and creative texts, and new scientific research about whales and other marine mammals to both sound a warning of the irreversible consequences of the collapsing climate and offer alternative possibilities for living during these challenging times.Collaboratively organized by the Institute of the Arts and Sciences and the Friedlaender Bio-Telemetry and Behavioral Ecology Lab at UC Santa Cruz, this catalog is the result of a two-year working group of artists, scientists, and other scholars investigating the histories and structures that render some lives, both human and nonhuman, more vulnerable to ecological crisis. Including artistic projects and scientific data, Weather and the Whale raises fundamental questions about knowledge, power, multispecies relationships, and the responsibilities – and limits – of science in addressing the complexities of the climate crisis. This catalog also highlights the collective practices and alternative epistemes necessary to create a more healthy, and just, world.Artists: Imani Jacqueline Brown, Carolina Caycedo, Sharon Daniel, Yolande Harris, Christine Howard Sandoval, Ashley Hunt, Courtney Leonard, John Jota Leaños, Libia Posada, Mia Eve Rollow, Whale Liberation Front, Sam Williams, Suné Woods.Scientists: Natalia Botero-Acosta, Chloe Lew, Logan Pallin.Other contributors: Guillermo Delgado-P., Cory Diane, Mirra-Margarita Ianeva, LuLing Osofsky, Kailani Polzak, Şebnem Susam-Saraeva, Zac Zimmer.

Centering the voices of the currently and formerly incarcerated, works from 80 contributors visualize a prison-free futurePublished with Institute of the Arts and Sciences at UC Santa Cruz and San José Museum of Art.Prisons are so ingrained in history and the cultural imagination as to appear inevitable. Yet as long as prisons have existed, alternative rehabilitations have flourished. Seeing through Stone accompanies the largest-ever exhibition emerging from the movement for prison abolition in the United States. It draws its title from a work by poet Etheridge Knight (1931–91), who wrote his first collection while incarcerated at Indiana State Prison. The art and texts in this catalog explore this shared capacity for the radical sight permeating through prison walls and include contributions from artists, writers and activists both currently and formerly incarcerated, alongside those without that lived experience. Over 80 artists and collectives from around the world contribute work, while the original texts are authored by such activists as Robin D.G. Kelley and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson.