TV, Film, and Theater
Relles’ scholarship reflects an extensive background as an innovator in the arts and entertainment industries. She served as Vice President of Creative Writer Development at Fox Broadcasting Company where she received national acclaim for her avant-garde approaches to working with independent filmmakers, New York-based playwrights, and UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television.
Art and Activism
In 2010, Relles partnered with filmmaker and artist, Aaron Rose, to found Make Something!!, a series of workshops that exposed urban youth to the DIY art practices of professional street artists including Kaws, Barry McGee, Ed Templeton, Geoff McFetridge, Scott Campbell, among others.
Cinematic Methods
Relles’ grant-funded work has explored the use of digital film to conduct, present, and distribute empirical, peer-reviewed research (Lury, 2018). Film is shown to have innovation potential because it can bridge the accessibility gap associated with traditional scholarship (Literat et al., 2018).
USC Skate Studies
With funding from the USC Provost’s Office, Relles and eight of her USC colleagues embarked on a year-long interdisiplinary study entitled Mattering in the Margins. Using cinematic methods, the project explored how Los Angeles area skateboarders navigate wellness and foster community.
Ethnographic Collage
Ethnographic collages are interactive digital spaces that present qualitative data in a visual format, enabling peer reviewers and the reseaerch community to encounter “thick description” (Geertz, 1973) in a simulation of a naturalistic setting.
