Issues & Ideas: Public Art in Santa Maria, a virtual Black Lives Matter art exhibit, and the SBIFF

KCBX | By Michelle Loxton/KAZU

Published April 8, 2021 at 8:54 AM PDT

The Santa Barbara International Film Festival runs through April 10.

On this edition of Issues & Ideas, we take a look at a new virtual art exhibit in San Luis Obispo, which documents the local Black Lives Matter Movement. In Santa Maria, local artists and advocates are working together to bring new art to public spaces. Santa Barbara community members gathered in solidarity with the Asian Pacific Islander community last month, after the violence in Georgia. San Luis Obispo County Public Health Director Penny Borenstein looks back at lessons learned about the COVID 19 pandemic. And finally, we check out the 36th annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

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Tom Wilmer

Tom Wilmer produces on-air content for Issues & Ideas airing over KCBX and is producer and host of the six-time Lowell Thomas award-winning NPR podcast Journeys of Discovery with Tom Wilmer. Recorded live on-location across America and around the world, the podcasts feature the arts, culture, music, nature, history, science, wine & spirits, brewpubs, and the culinary arts--everything from baseball to exploring South Pacific atolls to interviewing the real Santa Claus in the Arctic.

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Michael Barros

Michael Barros is a reporter in the KCBX Newsroom. He has a degree in journalism from California Polytechnic State University, where he spent two years reporting for the campus news outlet, Mustang Media. He spent several months as an intern for NPR's All Things Considered in Washington D.C. Michael covers breaking news for daily newscasts, and creates features for the local broadcast of All Things Considered and Morning Edition. When he's not reporting, he's probably hammocking in a forest or painting.

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Beth Thornton

Beth Thornton was a freelance reporter for KCBX, and a contributor to Issues & Ideas from 2019 to 2024. She was a 2021 Data Fellow with the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism, and was accepted by the Center to receive a 2024 California Health Equity Impact grant. Beth has contributed reporting to KQED's statewide radio show The California Report.

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