Annie Buckley

Email

Primary Email: [email protected]

Building/Location

Art South - 557

Website Links

• https://www.anniebuckley.com/
• https://iahsj.sdsu.edu/
• https://www.prisonartscollective.com/

Bio

Annie Buckley is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, and the founding director of SDSU’s Institute for the Arts, Humanities, and Social Justice, and a professor and former Director in the School of Art and Design. A recognized leader in the field of arts in prisons, Buckley founded Prison Arts Collective (PAC) in 2013. Based on the belief in art as a human right, PAC has brought transformative arts programs to over 8,000 people in 16 prisons over ten years. At SDSU, she collaborated with units all across campus to initiate VISTA (Valuing Incarcerated Scholars through Academia), an innovative SDSU BA degree program at Centinela State Prison.

Buckley has written extensively about her work in prisons for Los Angeles Review of Books and other publications and is the editor of Higher Education and the Carceral State (Routledge, 2024), featuring innovative prison-university partnerships. A respected art critic, Buckley has published over 250 reviews and essays on contemporary art in leading journals, including Artforum, Art in America, Artillery, and others. She is also the author of numerous books for youth, including the popular Kids Yoga Deck (Chronicle Books) and non-fiction books books on the arts and on social issues, including homelessness and racism.

Buckley’s creative practice embraces image, text, and social practice. Two works of fiction were published as part of collaborative multidisciplinary art projects, including “Psychic Outlaws,” which was also the subject of a group exhibition at the Luckman Fine Art Complex at CSULA. Her multidisciplinary work, “The People’s Tarot,” was included in Ben Maltz Gallery and Hollywood Art Center, FL alongside Miami Basel 2015, and her digital collage work was featured at Los Angeles International Airport. She is the curator of “Bridging Homeboy Industries” and “Disruption! Art and the Prison Industrial Complex” and co-founder of the online publication, “Radical Actions: From Teaching Artists to Social Practice.”

Buckley has been awarded numerous grants and awards and is the PI on a statewide research project looking at the impact of arts on wellness for people experiencing incarceration. She has received ongoing funding for PAC from the California Arts Council since 2016, earned five Grants for Arts Projects from the NEA as well as an inaugural NEA grant for Research in the Arts, multiple grants from CDCR, and a significant grant from the Mellon Foundation. Buckley has been honored for her work, including being named Outstanding Faculty, the highest faculty honor, at California State University, San Bernardino in 2019, the same year she received formal recognition in the California State Senate for her leadership of PAC. In 2023, Buckley received the inaugural Public Impact Award from the Division of Research and Innovative at SDSU, and she has received numerous academic and community awards for her service learning courses and work in the prisons.

Buckley received a BA in Art with Honors from UC Berkeley and a MFA in New Genres from Otis College of Art and Design. She is a graduate of the Women’s Executive Leadership Training from UC Berkeley Haas School of Business.

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