Join us for a reading with Brenda Iijima and Saretta Morgan
Q+A and book signing, reception to follow at The UGA Special Collections Library
 
This event is supported in part by the Building Southern Intersectional Futures grant from the Mellon Foundation and the Institute for Women’s and Gender Studies at UGA.

Brenda Iijima is a poet, novelist, playwright, choreographer, and visual artist. She is the author of nine books of poetry. Her involvements occur at the intersections and mutations of genre, mode, receptivity, and field of study. Her current work engages submerged and occluded histories, other-than-human modes of expression, and telluric awareness in all forms. She is the author of A roundtable, unanimous dreamers chime in, a collaborative novel co-authored with Janice Lee (Meekling Press, 2023), a novel, Presence (Georgia Review Press, 2024), and a play, Daily Life in China (forthcoming from elis press, 2024). Iijima is the founding editor-publisher of Portable Press @ Yo-Yo Labs. She lives in Brooklyn.
  
Saretta Morgan is the author of Alt–Nature (Coffee House Press, 2024) as well as the chapbooks Feeling Upon Arrival (Ugly Duckling, 2018) and room for a counter interior (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs, 2017).
Her work engages ecologies and forms of connectivity that develop alongside processes of U.S. militarization. Over the past decade she has participated in veteran-led organizing with Veterans for Peace (NYC) and About Face: Veterans Against the War, as well as the humanitarian aid work of No More Deaths Phoenix, which provides direct support to address the death and suffering of migrants in the Sonoran Desert. Additionally, she has been fortunate to participate in, and learn from, Indigenous-led water protection and food sovereignty work, Black-led community healing initiatives, and trans-led support for detained migrants. She believes in a Free Palestine as part of the broader inevitability of LAND BACK for Indigenous peoples across the earth.

From 2018-2023 she lived between the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts, where she wrote her first full-length poetry collection, Alt–Nature (2024), and the chapbooks Feeling Upon Arrival (2018), and room for a counter interior (Portable Press @ Yo-Yo Labs, 2017).

She leads workshops and designs interactive language-based programs for public and private settings. As a practice, she no longer uses her bio to validate cultural arms of the carceral state. However, contractually: She is the 2025-2026 Black Mountain Institute-Kluge Fellow at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Born in Appalachia and raised on military installations, she is a daughter of the South (east & west). She lives on Muscogee lands in Atlanta, GA where she trains in Capoeira and wild bird rehabilitation.

Join us in celebrating the opening of Beverly's Athens, the first major solo exhibition of the artist Beverly Buchanan's work in the city by guest curators Mo Costello and Katz Tepper, supported by the Teiger Foundation. Free and open to the public.

Accessible entrance is available at the front of the building off of West Broad Street. Accessible parking is located directly behind the Athenaeum in UGA lot W-16 and corresponds to the front entrance on West Broad Street. Please contact Rachel.Waldrop@uga.edu to arrange access through the rear staff entrance. Accessible, gender-neutral restrooms are also available. Descriptive tours for blind and low-vision visitors are available by request and include verbal description of artworks. Please contact Rachel.Waldrop@uga.edu to arrange.

Join the Athenaeum and UGA’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences for a dynamic evening with two accomplished Private Wealth Advisors and the Head of Art Advisory Americas at UBS, all proud Franklin College alumni. Whether you’re a student exploring future career paths, a professional or patron curious about the crossroads of art, finance, and philanthropy, or simply interested in how individuals can shape the cultural landscape — this conversation is for you!

The Athenaeum and Franklin College of Arts & Sciences are proud to partner with the Innovation District and the Young Collectors Club on this program. The Innovation District is a comprehensive ecosystem of people, programs, and places working together to foster entrepreneurship and the commercialization of ideas at UGA. Young Collectors Club (YCC), founded in 2006 by Mary Stanley Studio, provides education and social networking opportunities for young professionals interested in learning about and collecting contemporary art. YCC members meet at least twice each month for exclusive behind-the-scene sessions with art critics, museum curators, artists, gallery owners, and private collectors.

Panelists

Matthew Newton (New York, NY) Executive Director, Head of Art Advisory Americas, Family Office Solutions, UBS Dual BFA in Art and Art Education, Lamar Dodd School of Art, Franklin College (’04)


R. Mitchell Wickham (Charlotte, NC) Managing Director, Private Wealth Advisor, Wealth Management, UBS BA English, Franklin College (’92)


Barry Young (Houston, TX) Managing Director, Wealth Management, USA Private Wealth Advisor, UBS BA History, Franklin College (’90)

The conversation will explore:
Career pathways that blend art, business, and entrepreneurship
What it really means to collect art today
How anyone — from any field — can become a meaningful supporter of the arts and make a lasting community impact
This event also highlights UBS’s long-standing commitment to contemporary art, including their world-renowned UBS Art Collection — featuring works from the 1960s to today by some of the most influential artists of our time.

Moderated by Rachel Waldrop, Director and Curator, Athenaeum & Dodd Galleries, UGA. For more details, visit athenaeum.uga.edu or contact Rachel at rachel.waldrop@uga.edu.

About UBS
UBS has a long history of supporting contemporary art and artists through its renowned corporate art collection, longstanding partnership with Art Basel, and Art Advisory expertise. The advice and guidance we provide is an integral part of the passion for art that we share with clients.
UBS Art Advisory, a service of Family Office Solutions, guides individuals and families toward the principles and best practices to build, maintain and plan for exceptional lasting collections. Through a suite of advisory services related to art collecting, art market due diligence, collection management, strategic planning and art legacy, collectors of significant wealth are equipped with the knowledge and support to set the standard for our generation’s leading collections.