The second installment of The Judith Center Book Club will focus on Shulamith Firestone’s The Dialectic of Sex (1970), a foundational feminist text that questioned the idea of gender as natural or fixed, instead understanding it as a political and material system shaped by social arrangements. Writing decades ahead of much contemporary theory, Firestone traced gender hierarchy to reproductive labor and the structure of family life, showing how biological difference becomes oppressive through the ways it is organized and enforced. Her forward-looking engagement with technology as a possible site of feminist intervention—particularly in relation to reproduction—anticipates later anti-naturalist and technomaterialist approaches to gender, including strands of contemporary thought such as xenofeminism. Lana Dee Povitz, Assistant Professor of History at Middlebury College, will join the conversation as a special guest. Povitz is currently authoring a biography of Firestone.

This spring, The Judith Center partners with CalArts to host French conceptual artist Carole Douillard for a one-month residency. The collaboration is based in the CalArts Reef Residency space, located adjacent to The Judith Center, a public-facing gallery where visitors can observe the artist’s work in progress. With a practice rooted in the reinterpretation of historic performances and the reactivation of feminist archives, Douillard uses this residency to conduct research and rehearsals for a collaborative performance realized with CalArts students at the school’s campus in Valencia, California. During her time in Los Angeles, she will research the history of performance art by women and queer artists in Southern California from the 1960s through the 1980s. Members of the public who are interested in visiting the space or connecting with the artist are invited to contact us at info@thejudithcenter.org.

In 2024, The Judith Center launched its first major initiative, The Judith Center Poster Project, occurring over five years in partnership with numerous university art museums across the U.S. The project features new works made by 50 American artists, reflecting contemporary concerns about equality, and is accompanied by educational programs.

The first phase of the project, Freedom in the Automation Age, is on view at The Judith Center (following its debut at MSU Broad Art Museum) through May 9, 2026. The series consists of newly commissioned posters by Lynn Hershman Leeson, Lauren Lee McCarthy, Warren Neidich, abbi page, Martine Syms, and Linda Vallejo. The artists’ works speak to intersections of gender and how the commercialization/weaponization of new technology (such as AI) is resulting in an increasingly restricted space for individual freedoms, both in democratic processes and beyond.

In May, The Judith Center partners with the nonprofit organization Just Detention International (JDI) to present an exhibition featuring nearly one hundred works by individuals who have experienced trauma behind bars, including those who have been subjected to sexual abuse while incarcerated. The exhibition foregrounds personal testimony and creative expression, bringing visibility to voices that are too often excluded from public and cultural discourse. Founded in 1980, Just Detention International is a health and human rights organization dedicated to ending sexual abuse in all forms of detention. JDI is the only organization in the United States—and globally—focused exclusively on addressing sexual abuse behind bars. Its work includes holding government officials accountable for prisoner rape, challenging the cultural and institutional conditions that allow sexual violence to persist, and ensuring that survivors have access to the support and resources they need.

On May 31, 2026, The Judith Center will present the keynote panel for the Now Be Here Anniversary & Now Let’s Talk Events, hosted by Occidental College/OXY ARTS. Serving as the kick-off event of the day-long program, the panel will feature Jori Finkel, the Los Angeles-based writer and editor; and a founding member of the Guerrilla Girls. Panelists will consider effective instances of resisting sexism in various sectors of the art industry over the last several decades, while also addressing the work that remains to be done to create more equitable and inclusive conditions within the field.