ARTIST'S STATEMENT

"Art, we hope, seems to evoke humanity in most people. They associate it with expressiveness, sensitivity, creativity—in sum, traits that seem antithetical to those assigned to prisoners. Even people who do not consider artistry a real career admire artists. Hence, the apparent paradox."

- Dr. David Gussak, 2016

Central Question

What is the effect art can have on both those experiencing incarceration themselves and on a society largely unknowing of the injustices within the U.S. carceral system?

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Literature

My interest in this project sparked this past summer after watching a film called 13th on Netflix. The film reported that although the U.S. holds 4.4% of the world's population, we hold 25% of the world's prisoners (Duvernay, 2016). It became clear to me that there is a world of mass incarceration that I had been blind to my entire life, and this was a part of the problem. 

The voice of the incarcerated population has been historically and tragically suppressed across the United States. The nature of art gives every human, regardless of all the differences they have from each other, a place to express themselves for an audience to experience and share with others. In 2016, Nicole R. Fleetwood’s new book Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration, out now from Harvard University Press, marked a huge step in amplifying the voices of those who are not given a microphone (Fleetwood, 2016). This issue affects disproportionately communities of color, especially black and brown populations within our country. Given the social justice movements of last summer, it is clear that there is no better time to take action and spread the invaluable art each individual locked up behind bars has to offer. Larry Brewster, Dean at the University of San Francisco, wrote in the Justice Policy Journal of the impact of prison arts programs on its inmates: his study finding positive correlations between arts education and life effectiveness attitudes, as well a reduction in disciplinary reports and even greater participation in academic and vocational programs (Brewster, 2014). This means that not only do arts programs have the ability within prisons to benefit the surrounding community, but they have the power to also impact the life of the inmate in a positive way. I know from my personal experience that art can be healing, but given these findings, there is an extremely strong case for promoting arts prison programs across the country. The Justice Arts Coalition, the organization I have been lucky enough to partner with for my project, works to connect incarcerated artists to prison arts programs and teaching artists and to provide a platform for incarcerated artist's work, for their voice to be heard.

Methods

My research began with simply educating myself on the basics of the problem of mass incarceration. I then began to look into art programs in prisons, leading me to many scholarly articles confirming the efficacy of artistic expression in incarceration. This led me to search for organizations that I had hoped to partner with, to provide me with more insight and experience than I have with art programs in prison, and allow me to do the service work that I had planned my project to be from the beginning. This brought me to my work with the Justice Arts Coalition. 

Throughout my project, I continued research, but the main methods of my service work were in my presentation of the artwork and my research itself in Artlinks, as well as my utilization of art therapy and creative activity in my creativity packet. 

To measure the efficacy of my work, I can look at multiple sources. A survey was sent out to the about 30 participants who attended the Artlinks showcase on zoom, which provided me feedback on both pre- and post- knowledge of my local community on the U.S. carceral system, and their reactions to the powerful artwork in the gallery. Also, Artlinks participants in JAC commonly send letters to a specific artist in the gallery whose work spoke to them, and sometimes this begins a correspondence with the artist sending a letter of response back. Although this process is ongoing in the wake of my Artlinks event, JAC has helped me to send the letters from my event to the incarcerated artists. Lastly, although the creative art packet that I compiled, named The Mindful Artist because of my focus in art therapy for the packet, has yet to reach JAC participants, eventually hopefully it will be used as a resource, and I will be provided direct feedback from the artists' on its effect. In the packet's creation, I gained feedback from both the JAC team, a psychologist, and UMD arts professors to compile and polish ideas for the packet exercises.​​

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Audience & Impact

There are two target audiences for my project; one being people experiencing incarceration themselves, and the other being my local community. My hope through this project was to promote artistic expression in the incarcerated population, both prompting the therapeutic effects of artistic expression, and providing a platform for artists to voice what they have to say through their art. In another lens, the audience for my project is the larger privileged Maryland area who has not been exposed to the adversity that incarcerated people often battle. I hope to be able to amplify the voices of these artists who face constant abuse and injustice, but are unable to bring awareness to this because of a system deeply rooted in the idea of silencing its prisoners. By bringing the voices of incarcerated artists right in front of the faces of people who have afforded to look away for so long, my hope is that, as art often does, we will be able to find empathy for each other and see each other’s perspective. This is even more relevant given the political climate of today.

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References

Brewster, Larry. “The Impact of Prison Arts Programs on Inmate Attitudes and Behavior: A

Quantitative Evaluation.” Justice Policy Journal, Vol. 11, #2, 2014. http://www.cjcj.org/uploads/cjcj/documents/brewster_prison_arts_final_formatted.pdf

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Duvernay, Ava, and Moran, Jason. 13TH. Netflix USA, 2016.

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Fleetwood, Nicole R. “Creation in Confinement: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration.” The New York Review of Books, 28 Apr. 2020, 

https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2020/04/28/creation-in-confinement-art-in-the-age-of-m ass-incarceration/.

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Gussak, David. "Art Therapy in Prison is Social Justice." PsychologyToday.com, 11 Feb 2016. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/art-trial/201602/art-therapy-in-prison-is-social-justice#:~:text=Therapy%20Essential%20Reads&text=Art%20breaches%20the%20walls%2C%20providing,prison%20and%20the%20outside%20culture

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Acknowledgements

My deepest thanks go to every single person who has helped me with this project- I couldn't have done this without the incredible support I received throughout the process. Thank you to Harold, Heather, and Gabi from the Arts Faculty, to Wendy, Jayme, Maia, Jenan, and Ava from JAC, and finally to my parents, brother, family and friends for their constant support.