She/Her/Ella

Diahndra Grill (ella, her) is a multimedia artist, educator, and intersectional feminista. She is the co-founder of JustWrite (hyperlink to https://nowrongjustwrite.org), a non-profit organization focused in the education sector and with those incarcerated and returning citizens, engaging visual and literary arts as catalysts for healing, self-discovery, and bridging communities to reimagine new worlds and possibilities. Diahndra is also the Program Manager in Film & Digital Arts at the University of New Mexico. Diahndra received her MA in Chicana and Chicano Studies at UNM as part of the inaugural cohort of graduate students in the Department. Her research is situated at the convergence of education, incarceration, and embodied practice, centering the experiences of people of color and indigenous knowledge and world making. Her research builds on a praxis that imagines a world without prisons in all its forms, is predicated on solidarity and the sharing of information and resources, mutual support, learning from one another, and formulating critical discourse while building alliances that are life affirming. Diahndra’s art reflects the personal and political experience while engaging the power of interwoven relationships and storytelling to dismantle borders and reconnect us with where we come from, who we are, and the connections we have with each other and the land. Her individual and collaborative creative works have been featured in spaces that include 516 ARTS Heart of the City and Bridge: Arts and Social Justice exhibit, and she has been part of panels and facilitated workshops with Amnesty International, INCITE! Color of Violence, Returning the Gift: Indigenous Storytellers and Writers, Voces Libertad, and others. She was also chosen as a TEDxABQ speaker, entitled “Why Art?” Diahndra has been publishing written works and artwork alongside our gente locked up for several years now. One of the projects closest to her heart that she began in 2012 is the now multi-volume, self-published, collaborative JustWrite poetry and art zines.

Research Interests:

Decoloniality, Cultural Production, Intersectional Feminisms, Indigenous World Making, Oral History and Storytelling