2021 Abakanowicz Fellowship Awardees

The Abakanowicz Arts and Culture Charitable Foundation (AACCF), in collaboration with Pacifica Graduate Institute Alumni Association, is pleased to announce the 2021 Abakanowicz Community and Ecological Fieldwork and Research Fellowships.

AACCF was established in 2018 to promote the legacy of Magdalena Abakanowicz and to fund programs that investigate concepts of human creativity, the role of art as a visual language within cultures and a dynamic force within contemporary society, and the intersection of art and other modes of inquiry for the purposes of extending the meaning and relevance of Abakanowicz’s art and its underlying ideas. Applicants must be a second-year, third-year, or dissertation student in good standing with the Community, Liberation, Indigenous, and Ecopsychology (CLIE) Program at Pacifica Graduate Institute.

Sarah María Acosta Ahmad

She/her, They/them

Sarah María is a Two-Spirit copalera, artist, trauma worker, herbalist and community organizer from Pontiac, Michigan. They use their Mexika ancestral wisdom to make medicines and to guide plant teachings that are affirming for gender gradient folks. Sarah has a BA in Women’s and Gender Studies and Political Science from DePaul University, and is also working on a graduate studies program in Community, Liberation, Indigenous and Ecopsychologies at the Pacifica Graduate Institute to tie together their work. Currently, Sarah María is invovled in crisis work at a local anti-violence organization, designing and advocating for the implementation of culturally competent services for queer, disabled, low-income, and peoples of color in urban communities. When Sarah is not working or gardening, she focuses on building an ancestral apothecary that centers Queer and Trans BIPOC (Black Indigenous People of Color), mutual-aid medicine shares and decolonial care work. Their interests currently include Indigenous bearth work, textiles, shapeshifting with plants, bodymind liberation, and environmental justice.

Kristina Yarbrough

Kristina Yarbrough is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in Austin, Texas, and a PhD student of Depth Psychology (Community, Liberation, Indigenous & Eco Psychologies) at Pacifica Graduate Institute. She offers counseling, consulting and community projects on narcissistic and gaslighting abuse, healing from the violence of coloniality and liberation arts. Kristina is also a Southern storyteller and an explorer within the emergence of place. The local communities of San Marcos, Texas (Kristina’s hometown) have invited Kristina to be in collective resistance to colonial forms of violence in San Marcos, particularly centering on the San Marcos River. With the support of the Abakanowicz Fellowship, Kristina is working on a film project with her friend from childhood, Blanca Loya, who has been at the center of the struggle in San Marcos her whole life. The film will reanimate the San Marcos River, highlight the ecologies of knowledge from the indigenous-to-San-Marcos communities, and contribute to the complex struggles and resistance in the U.S. South to colonial violence.

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