Noni Session: 2026 Ted Purves Social Practice Lecture @ CCA

Please join us for the 2026 Ted Purves Social Practice Lecture by Noni Session

Noni Session is a 3rd generation West Oaklander and Cultural Anthropologist. Her research and organizing work spans national and global arenas. In her doctoral work under the umbrella of the UNDP in Nairobi, Kenya, Noni carried out ethnographic analysis of international humanitarian strategies and their on-the-ground consequences. After a 2016 run for Oakland City Council in which she garnered more than 43% of the vote, Noni came to believe that her community’s clearest pathway to economic justice and halting rapid displacement was an independent cooperative economy. Noni holds a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology and Black Studies, cum laude, from San Francisco State University, and an M.A. in Cultural Anthropology from Cornell University.

Ted Purves (1964-2017) faculty member and former Chair of the Graduate Fine Arts Program (2009-2016), was the integral force behind the founding of the first Social Practice curriculum in the United States and the subsequent MA in Social Practice and Public Forms. He mentored hundreds of students, faculty and artists. For Ted, being a professor of art was less about training future practitioners than about an inquiry that only promised further questions. He envisioned how art and artists instigate change in the world when other measures fail. To further Ted’s generous spirit and to honor his important legacy at the college, an endowment was created in his name in 2020 to support art and social practice.

This event will also include the announcement of the 2026 Ted Purves GFA Social Practice Award.