Zócalo Public Square

Live from the CalMatters Ideas Festival in Sacramento, CA: XPRIZE Foundation CEO Anousheh Ansari, Public Policy Institute of California president and CEO and retired Chief Justice of California Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye, and Ian Klaus, founding director of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace California Center, visit Zócalo at the CalMatters Ideas Festival to discuss the state of new ideas in t...

Live from the ASU California Center Broadway in Los Angeles, CA: Artist and sculptor Charles Dickson and Destination Crenshaw founding lead historian Larry Earl visit Zócalo to discuss Dickson’s sculpture, “Car Culture,” which will be on permanent display in Sankofa Park, and how monumental public art projects and cruising scenes throughout Southern California can bring people together across zip...

Live from the Crenshaw High School Performing Arts Center in Crenshaw, CA: Architect Gabrielle Bullock and Los Angeles City Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson join Destination Crenshaw senior art advisor V. Joy Simmons on the Zócalo stage at Crenshaw High School to discuss Destination Crenshaw’s genesis and design. This program was presented in partnership with Destination Crenshaw, with genero...

Live from SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, CA: Artist and Bloom & Plume founder Maurice Harris, sports agent and former NFL player Jacques McClendon, and poet aja monet visit Zócalo and Kinsey Collection at SoFi Stadium to discuss what one of the world’s largest private collections of Black art and historical objects is doing at one of the world’s grandest football stadiums, why it matters, and where si...

Live from the New Parkway Theater in Oakland, CA: Gig worker and advocate Sergio Avedian, Gigs founder and CEO Allen Narcisse, and the Workers Lab chief research officer Shelly Steward visit Zócalo to help us understand how we might make gig work good work. This is the fifth event in Zócalo's series “What Is a Good Job Now?,” co-presented with the James Irvine Foundation. This discussion is modera...

Maxwell L. Stearns, constitutional law professor and author of the new book Parliamentary America, visits Zócalo to outline a three-part plan to turn the United States into a multi-party parliamentary democracy that could make our politics less maddening, more collaborative—and perhaps even more fun. What are the legal, constitutional, and political steps needed to modernize American democracy and...

What are the best ideas and models for finding good jobs for the formerly incarcerated? How can we improve the low pay and challenging working conditions in those industries that are most likely to employ people who have been in the system? And what policies and economic changes would open more possible career paths and economic opportunities for this population? Amity Foundation president and CEO...

Artists across disciplines have harnessed generative AI as mind-extenders, expanding the possibilities of their work, and unleashing new ways to see the world. But as bots get more adept at human-like thought, writers, actors, and others protest in lawsuits and on picket lines, asking: What’s left for artists? Should tech companies be allowed to use existing art to train AI engines? Who gets credi...

How are institutional leaders navigating the warring tides of politics and public opinion—tides that may steer them toward uncertain futures? Can organizations help artists, patrons, and the public find common ground, or productive ways to discuss their differences, in this moment of deep democratic and cultural conflict? And, even as they themselves struggle to stay afloat, how do arts institutio...

Can artists shield themselves from the demands of politics and polarized discourse or—in places and periods where activism puts their life and liberty at risk—from bodily danger? Does all their work, in a moment of crisis, have to address that crisis? And how can they know when that moment has come? Two women artists—social-practice artist Suzanne Lacy and photographer Catherine Opie—discuss the r...

Environmental activist and hip-hop artist Xiuhtezcatl Martinez (Xochimilco), L.A. LGBT Center communications officer and former editor-in-chief of Out magazine Phillip Picardi, and “On Being” founder, executive producer, and host Krista Tippett visit Zócalo to discuss how society might draw strength and coax vision from the shortcomings and failures of its collective past, moderated by University...

The state of California has some of the nation’s strongest legal protections for workers. But Californians continue to suffer from various forms of abuse by their employers—from unpaid overtime to dangerous working conditions; from wage theft to racial, ethnic, gender discrimination. What are the biggest challenges for agencies and communities as they seek to turn pro-labor legislation into better...

Early this year, an uncrewed Chinese-operated high-altitude balloon floated across U.S. airspace, stoking anxiety and fascination among Americans, who assumed it was spying on them, and ultimately provoking President Biden to order the Pentagon to shoot it down. Just as alarming as foreign espionage, though, is the fear of information-gathering turned inward. American anxieties around the “surveil...

We know cooking best as an act of nourishment, love, and tradition—but it can also cut as sharply as the knives that chop an onion. In Sinaloa, Mexico, a group of relatives of desaparecidos (the tens of thousands of people who have disappeared from the country), have banded together to fight back against government indifference and complicity. Dubbed Las Rastreadoras del Fuerte, the members’ main...

Benjamin W. Rawlins Professor of Communication Andre E. Johnson, Monument Lab co-founder and artist Ken Lum, and reparations leader Robin Rue Simmons join Zócalo and the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis to discuss what repair looks like, and how different people and places have stumbled and succeeded in its pursuit. This program was co-presented with the National Civil...

Public health professor Helda Pinzón-Perez, health care workforce researcher Janette Dill, and in-home supportive services provider Martha Valladarez visited Zócalo to discuss how to build a healthier health care workforce. This discussion was moderated by KVPR News Director Cresencio Rodriguez-Delgado at The Fresno Center in Fresno, CA on Thursday, August 23. This is the second program in the "Wh...

Boxing is a sport of contradictions. Known as the “sweet science” because of the technical skills its fighters need to succeed, it is also incredibly brutal. Boxing has provided a creative outlet and a path out of poverty for generations of California strivers, forging cultural and individual identity, promoting dignity, pride, and agency, and delivering million-dollar paydays for some. But the sp...

Beyond debates over keeping statues up or tearing them down and changing the names of schools and streets lie more fundamental questions at the intersection of personal and public memory. We know how to honor and memorialize idealized heroes; we know less about remembering complicated, real people, who did extraordinary things—let alone how to remember historical figures who changed the world for...

There is a long and global tradition of artists—visual, performing, and literary—creating arresting, even beautiful works that address the horrors of war. How is art used as a form of protest, to change minds as well as hearts? What happens to its meaning over time—as war persists, and as new battles erupt? And what does it say about us all that war has inspired acclaimed works from artists as div...

Live from The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture at the Riverside Art Museum: One Fair Wage president Saru Jayaraman, hospitality expert Lesley Butler, and restaurant worker Ralph Prado IV visited Zócalo to discuss the future of tourism and hospitality work in the Inland Empire and throughout California. This event was presented in partnership with The James Irvine Foundation and modera...

Recorded live from ASU California Center at the historic Herald Examiner Building: Artist Serge Attukwei Clottey, and essayists and novelists Laila Lalami and Pankaj Mishra visited Zócalo to discuss why the English-speaking world can’t seem to fully absorb one of the central events of the recent past, and what it all means for our collective future. This event was presented in partnership with UCI...

The headlines that make breaking news in the art world most often concern a piece’s financial worth, which nearly always means how much a private collector paid for it. But for most of us, the value of art has very little to do with a dollar amount. Rather, art provides an avenue to a diverse range of critical discussions, evokes a feeling or a memory, helps us process deep emotions, or calls us t...

Live from ASU California Center at the historic Herald Examiner Building. Tech entrepreneur Nonny de la Peña, author Charlton McIlwain, and internet activist Ethan Zuckerman joined Zócalo and Future Tense to ponder human decision-making’s impact on the digital world–and the ways that code, in turn, has impacted humanity. This event was hosted on January 31, 2023 and was moderated by Torie Bosch, e...

Live from ASU California Center at the historic Herald Examiner Building: Iran analyst Holly Dagres, artist Sahar Ghorishi, and anthropologist Pardis Mahdavi joined Zócalo to discuss if young women hold the key to a just future for Iran. This event was recorded on December 6, 2022 and was moderated by Porochista Khakpour, author of "Brown Album" Visit https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/ to read ou...

Live from ASU California Center at the historic Herald Examiner Building: The night began with Beau Sia performing “We Voting,” and Sekou Andrews and Steve Connell performing “Water Stained Black,” followed by a conversation with the poets about the ways artists engage with politics, and fuel democracy. This event was co-presented with Da Poetry Lounge and moderated by poet and art organizer Alyes...