Columbia Collective

SANDS >< beyond/through/before >< TIME  is the product of a collaborative artistic exchange between Girls, Inc. of Greater Santa Barbara, and the Columbia Collective – a group of female/trans incarcerated and formerly incarcerated emerging artists in Hudson Valley, NY. Girls from Girls, Inc. Santa Barbara were asked to design their, “dream playgrounds,” while Columbia Collective artists visualized the Girls Inc. ideas, incorporating them into their distinctive playground designs. The resulting sketches from the collaboration are on display alongside a final culminating digital collage by Columbia Collective founder, artist Maggie Hazen. Together, these works on view illustrate creative growth out of contemporary ruins, collaboratively with artists across geographies of freedom.

The Columbia Collective is a group of emerging incarcerated/formerly incarcerated artists exercising creative freedom across states of confinement, named for the maximum juvenile secure center where they lived and worked, The Columbia Secure Center for Girls. Currently, the group comprises seven artists; Jay, Juste-A, Marilynn, Marshmallow, Rory Rei, Tiana and Toni, and was founded in 2020 by artist Maggie Hazen in collaboration with curator Sofia Thieu D’Amico.

Since the formation of the Columbia Collective, the group has exhibited and collaborated with Pioneer Works, Red Hook, NY; Siena College, NY; Foreland Contemporary Art Center, NY; Boarder Patrol, Bakersfield, CA; Shandaken Projects, NY; and The Athens Cultural Center, Catskill, NY.