Santa Monica College is spending three evenings next week asking how art shapes the way people vote, remember, and resist. The college's Public Policy Institute has scheduled its Fall Arts and Cultural Affairs Forum for November 16 through 18, with three evening discussions built around the theme Art, Politics & Democracy: Stories That Shape Us, examining how creative work colors the way voters see elections and interpret history and culture.
All three panels are free and open to the public, taking place at 7 p.m. in the Student Services Center Auditorium, SSC 183, on SMC's Main Campus at 1900 Pico Boulevard, according to the Santa Monica Daily Press. The institute is co-sponsored by the City of Santa Monica, the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, and the Associated Students of Santa Monica College, and it describes its mission as offering nonpartisan community programming on economic, social, and political issues. As with any scheduled campus program, the paper notes forum events are subject to change without notice.
Night One Breaks Down the Anatomy of a Political Ad
The series opens Monday, November 16, with “The Art of the Political Ad,” a discussion of how campaigns use images, music, emotion and storytelling to persuade voters, as surfsantamonica.com reports. Eric Oifer, a political science professor who chairs SMC's Philosophy and Social Sciences Department, will moderate the opening session, per the Santa Monica Daily Press.
The following evening turns from campaign craft to the campaign's aftermath. “What Just Happened? Understanding the 2026 Election” is set for Tuesday, November 17, featuring Shari Davis, the institute's co-director and an SMC professor, alongside guest speaker Dan Schnur of UC Berkeley's Institute of Governmental Studies. The same report notes Schnur also holds appointments at Pepperdine University's Graduate School of Public Policy and USC's Annenberg School of Communications.
Closing Panel Turns to Film, Memory, and Repression
The forum concludes Wednesday, November 18, with “Art Against Authoritarianism: ‘La Bola Negra,’ Lorca, and the Politics of Memory,” a panel exploring art, queer history, political repression, and resistance as they appear in the new film La Bola Negra. Amber Katherine, an SMC philosophy professor, will moderate the session, according to the Santa Monica Daily Press's account of the lineup, which also lists Sebastian Carrasco and Alci Rengifo, co-hosts of the Breaking the 180 film podcast, along with SMC sociology professor James Thing among the discussion's participants. Richard Tahvildaran-Jesswein serves as the institute's co-director.
It's not the first time the institute has used its fall forum to link art with social and political currents. Back in 2018, its Fall Arts and Cultural Affairs Forum ran from November 13 to 30 under the banner “There Goes the Neighborhood,” pairing a discussion of gentrification in the context of LatinX and queer spaces and social justice with a Westside Ballet Nutcracker performance, according to a Santa Monica College newsletter archive. That same institute also produced a 2018 Spring Symposium examining how health care policies and initiatives can restrict or empower citizens, per the newsletter.
Nutcracker Season Follows Right Behind the Forum
Once the panels wrap, the Public Policy Institute's cultural season rolls straight into the holidays. Westside Ballet of Santa Monica will present The Nutcracker with the SMC Community Nutcracker Orchestra from November 27 through December 6 at the Eli and Edythe Broad Stage at the SMC Performing Arts Center, 1310 11th Street, the Santa Monica Daily Press reports. Performance times and tickets are listed at westsideballet.com/nuttix.
Guests who need disability accommodations for any of the forum events are asked to contact [email protected] or call 310-434-4173 at least five business days in advance. Anyone looking for more information on the institute's programming can reach it at smc.edu/ppi or by calling 310-434-3541.
