The inspiration.

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This site is a platform for radical work. Inspired by Nicole R. Fleetwood's recent publication, Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration (April 2020), this site aims to resist the public perception of incarceration while pursuing radical imagination for a better future. By showcasing art from youth in a juvenile detention center, the hope is to forge connections between those impacted by mass incarceration and those who can amplify those voices to create change.

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"Fraught imaginaries" is the concept developed by Fleetwood to name the "necessary, messy work of creating art, political action, and new sets of relationships between the incarcerated and nonincarcerated, and doing so across forms of penal space, time, and matter" (158).

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Through art exchange and literary feedback, this site's work is centered around Fleetwood's essential question of art in the age of mass incarceration:

“Instead of distracting from or obfuscating the fundamental wrongness of prisons and caging, can prison arts collaborations build new imaginary horizons by forming relations, ways of looking, and practices of interdependence that challenge the institutional brutality and punitive discourse separating the incarcerated from the nonincarcerated?" (189).

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Doing the work starts with seeing and perceiving. We cannot fix what we do not see.  the art gallery here will help viewers use their own powers of perception to read into the thoughts, feelings, and barriers that incarcerated youth are not given voice to share. Throughout the project, these insights will be posted for other viewers to reflect on as they draw their own conclusions and make connections with the young men and women inside our country's carceral systems.

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If out of sight is out of mind, then the main part of this work is insisting that the future belongs to everyone -- seen and unseen -- not just those who benefit from our legal system. One day these artists will be reintegrated into our societies. This site muses: How will we make space for them? How can these connections help us build a more just society for all?