Creative Arts Initiative

Link to Just Buffalo Literary Center Studio Poetry Series Upcoming Events webpage.

Just Buffalo Literary Center exists to share stories, give voice, and build community. The 2020/21 season will focus on writers whose work addresses issues related to the body, health, disability, and healing with different perspectives on that theme (i.e. the Black body; mother's bodies as sites of legal/political activity; the disabled body and discourses around abelism; AIDS and activism; and rhetoric(s) of cancer).

Designed to empower participants to explore literature as a means to translate their own experiences with health & the healthcare system, grief, trauma and victory over circumstance, the season will provide an artistic lens by which audiences may acknowledge and reshape outdated paradigms, nurture empathy, and promote healing and self-agency through creative expression.

All events will be online and FREE. Register through Crowdcast for access.

Upcoming Events

Oct. 28: A Reading & Conversation with Ilya Kaminsky
10/21/20
The Creative Arts Initiative joins Just Buffalo Literary Center in welcoming Ilya Kaminsky for a virtual reading & conversation with Artistic Director Barbara Cole. A poet and translator, Kaminsky is the author of Deaf Republic, a finalist for the 2019 National Book Award. The book imagines a town that falls into silence after a deaf boy is shot and killed, and asks, “what happens when the citizens of a country no longer hear one another?”
Nov. 4: A Reading & Conversation with Dawn Lundy Martin
10/21/20
The Creative Arts Initiative joins Just Buffalo Literary Center in welcoming Dawn Lundy Martin for a virtual reading and conversation with Artistic Director Barbara Cole. Martin and her books have been awarded the Kingsley Tufts Award for Poetry, the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Poetry, and the Cave Canem Prize. Her most recent book, Good Stock Strange Blood, challenges ideas of race, voice, bodies and justice through poems that are bold and formally innovative.
Nov. 11: A Reading & Conversation with Kazim Ali & Kaveh Akbar
10/21/20
The Creative Arts Initiative joins Just Buffalo Literary Center in welcoming Kazim Ali and Kaveh Akbar for a virtual reading and conversation. Kazim Ali is a poet, editor, and prose writer. His newest book, The Voice of Sheila Chandra, invokes influential South Indian singer Sheila Chandra—who was left nearly voiceless by a rare neurological condition—to consider what it means to have a voice in today’s world. Kaveh Akbar is an Iranian-American poet and scholar. He is the author of Calling a Wolf a Wolf, and the chapbook Portrait of the Alcoholic.
Nov. 18: A Reading & Conversation with Anne Boyer
10/21/20
The Creative Arts Initiative joins Just Buffalo Literary Center in welcoming Pulitzer Prize-winner Anne Boyer for a virtual reading & conversation with Artistic Director Barbara Cole. Boyer, a poet, essayist, and translator, was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer one week after her 41st birthday. Her book The Undying chronicles her treatment and recovery, raising larger questions about healthcare and how we treat the sick among us.
Feb-May 2021: Comunidades Visibles Film Series
10/22/20
Comunidades Visibles (Visible Communities): The Materiality of Migration brings together artworks by six first- or second-generation immigrant Latinx artists. In conjunction with this exhibition, which will be at the Albright-Knox Northland from Feb. 12-May 16, 2021, the Creative Arts Initiative will be partnering with the AKAG to host a series of films selected by the artists.
POSTPONED (Date TBA): Five Songs for Fillmore Ave
8/12/20
Five Songs for Fillmore Avenue is the world-premiere of a new site-specific performance that combines theatre, cinema, and live music.
Spring 2021: An Evening with Nick Cave
8/12/20
We have been closely monitoring how current health and travel issues are evolving with regard to the Coronavirus (COVID-19). After consultation with University at Buffalo leadership and a great deal of deliberation, our proactive feeling is that the best thing we can do for our community is to limit non-essential large gatherings. As such, the UB Humanities Institute is postponing An Evening with Nick Cave (March 27) and Performance, Publics, Possibilty (a one-day symposium scheduled for March 28), with the hope of rescheduling in Spring 2021.
Spring 2021: Symposium | Performance, Publics, Possibility
8/12/20
We have been closely monitoring how current health and travel issues are evolving with regard to the Coronavirus (COVID-19). After consultation with University at Buffalo leadership and a great deal of deliberation, our proactive feeling is that the best thing we can do for our community is to limit non-essential large gatherings. As such, the UB Humanities Institute is postponing An Evening with Nick Cave (March 27) and Performance, Publics, Possibilty (a one-day symposium scheduled for March 28), with the hope of rescheduling in Spring 2021.
June 2021: Arditti Quartet in Buffalo
8/12/20
During the Spring 2021 portion of their CAI residency, the world-renowned Arditti Quartet will be performing, teaching, giving workshops focused upon Buffalo and Western New York composers. They will be performing at several locations around Buffalo.

CAI Leadership

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CAI Co-Directors
2/25/16
David Felder and Bruce Jackson
Janne Sirén
1/20/16
Director, Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Anthony Bannon
10/23/17
Former Director, Burchfield Penney Art Center
Paul Hogan
1/26/16
Executive Vice President, John R. Oishei Foundation
Daniel Hart
1/20/16
Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra Executive Director
Laurie Dean Torrell
1/20/16
Executive Director, Just Buffalo Literary Center
Robert Shibley
1/20/16
Dean, UB School of Architecture and Planning
Austin Booth
1/20/16
Vice Provost for University Libraries, UB
Jean Kopperud
1/20/16
Professor, UB Department of Music

See All

ARTISTS-IN-RESIDENCE

The CAI accepts proposals for residencies for sessions from as short as a few days up to four months. All fields of creative art are eligible to participate. Both emerging artists and established artists are invited to participate. Companies and collaborating artists may apply.

3/1/20 CAI Artists-in-Residence

Have a geat idea? Propose it!>

Arts One

Arts One is a unique academic experience, designed to introduce students to a wide range of artistic performance and creative activity and to connect them to the artistic resources in the Buffalo community. Over the course of a semester, students will attend a variety of artistic exhibitions and performances both on campus in in Buffalo.

Learn more about Arts One>

Contact US

Have questions about the CAI? Want to collaborate? Please contact us.

Creative Arts Initiative
610 Samuel Clemens Hall
Buffalo, NY 14260-7015

Phone: (716) 645-6073
email: CAI-UB@Buffalo.edu