Arts & Justice Events Across the US

Please write to info@thejusticeartscoalition.org if you have an event for us to share! 

Events can also be found on our Google calendar.

25th Annual Exhibition of Art by Michigan Prisoners

The Annual Exhibition of Art by Michigan Prisoners is one of the largest exhibitions of art by incarcerated artists in the country. Each year, faculty, staff and students from the University of Michigan travel to correctional facilities across Michigan and select work for the exhibition while providing feedback and critique that strengthens artist’s work and builds community around art making inside prisons.

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Meet Us Quickly: Painting for Justice from Prison

A Digital Exhibition

Museum of the African Diaspora is proud to present Meet Us Quickly: Painting for Justice from Prison, an exhibition of the work of twelve artists incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison. The twenty-one works in the exhibition include linocut prints, acrylic paintings, ink drawings on paper, and collage and are organized and curated by Prison Renaissance co-founder Rahsaan “New York” Thomas. Eclectic in influence, certain works in this exhibition nod to pointillism and neo-constructivism while others honor the importance of Aaron Douglas and the Harlem Renaissance. These artists maintain significant artistic practices spanning diverse techniques and subjects. The works are presented with accompanying statements written by each artist, allowing these incarcerated men to speak for themselves and share their vision and perspectives in their own words.

Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration 

On September 17, join JAC in NYC to celebrate the opening of Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration at MoMA PS1! Eight artists in JAC’s national network will have works on display in this exhibition, which runs through April 4. More details on the opening event to come. For general info about the exhibit, click here.

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Chosen Family: Marking Time Artist Talks with Mary Baxter

Every other Thursday through April 1, 12 p.m. EST

2021 means something new. We invited artist Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter to host a series of online conversations with her fellow artists in Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration. These lunchtime chats bring a wide range of voices into dialogue to consider how bonds are forged through and around creative practice in the face of state-imposed separation.

This Thursday, January 7, Baxter will be in discussion with artists Jesse Krimes, Jared Owens, and Gilberto Rivera, who formed a deep friendship centered by their art practice while incarcerated.

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Amplify Music’s weekly live-streamed concert – Amplify TV

AmplifyTV is a safe, inclusive space for live-streamed music in the face of a global pandemic and beyond. We emphasize booking musicians with prior justice involvement. Following each show, a video recording is sent to juvenile facilities around Virginia. Shows are publicly live-streamed each Thursday at 8pm. A donation of $10 is encouraged and all earnings from each show will be divided between Amplify Music and the performer(s).

Amplify Music is hosting weekly livestreamed concerts through Amplify TV and they are looking for performers, especially individuals who were formerly incarcerated. These are free events, and donations received during the concert are split between the performers and Amplify Music! Please sign-up through this form. 

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Drama Therapy Group

Thursdays ongoing: February 18, March 18, April 15, May 20

9:30 AM-10:30 AM, Zoom, Free of Charge

You are invited to a Drama Therapy Group for the Formerly Incarcerated that will be ongoing on every third Thursday of the month. When you RSVP, you will get the zoom link to join. We are a group of Drama Therapists who have been meeting every week for several months as a way of staying connected, educating ourselves, and coming up with opportunities for ongoing work. We are hoping to collaborate with the many incredible people who have re-entered and are interested in continuing to go deeper with theatrical, creative work both for personal connection, healing, and workshopping their own ideas. Our goal is to share freely, play, and to go in a direction that the group as a whole wishes to go – the possibilities are endless.
 
Please join any week you can. You don’t have to commit to every group or month. Please share with any formerly incarcerated peers. We are eager to meet new people as well.
 
We look forward to sharing this time together!
 
Led by Drama Therapists: Kamran Afary, Elizabeth Malone Alteet, Lynn Baker-Nauman, and Marianne Shine.
 
RSVP to malone.lizzie@gmail.com for Zoom link and details. 

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Artists Dismantling Capitalism

Register here. 

Donations of $5-100 are encouraged to help cover the costs of the conference and to pay artists (prioritizing BIPOC artists)

This free/donation based Symposium offers 17 sessions facilitated by artists, community members and scholars. Sessions will focus on a wide range of topics including theater, music cooperatives, decolonizing the body, Hip Hop, Solidarity Economics, spirituality and more. Each session offers a glimpse into the use of artistic and creative practice in re-imaging and creating a new society based on a Solidarity Economy. In addition to local community members  and artists, the conference will feature visiting facilitators including Kwame Braxton and Shambe Jones of Cooperation Jackson, MS., Nati Linares of New Economy Network, David Ferris of the Highlander Center and more. This year’s symposium will also mark the virtual launch of “Just Imagine,” a public art show featuring pieces imagining a just transition to tomorrow’s world (Info to submit a piece below). Since our symposium will be online this year, we will continue the tradition of feeding folks by gathering non-perishable food through a food drive that will be distributed through our Little Free Pantry network. 

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Stun & Run: Women’s Self Defense

Sun, Apr 25 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM

Want to remove the word VICTIM from your vocabulary? Then sign up for STUN & RUN- a workshop designed exclusively for women who want to learn what they can do to protect themselves on an everyday basis. Created by Master Dora King, one of the highest ranking women martial artists in the country, this workshop will give you the tools to make self defense a way of life. The workshop will include both practice of blocks and defensive techniques as well as discussion of vital spots and striking points.


This workshop is open to girls and women of all ages. Wear comfortable clothing.

Meet the Instructor:
Master Dora King is a 7th degree Black Belt with King Karate and has trained in the martial arts for 35 years. She is the Director of Youth Karate-Ka Association; a non-profit which provides at risk youth an opportunity to train in the martial arts and healthy life choices. She also Co-Founded the Harvesting Earth Educational Farm designed to introduce local, organic food as a part of our healthy life choices. Dora founded the Stun & Run Self Defense system in an effort to offer females an opportunity to train with other females in a safe and supportive atmosphere.

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Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration

September 17, 2020 – April 04, 2021

MoMA PS1

As its first exhibition upon reopening to the public, MoMA PS1 will present a major exhibition exploring the work of artists within US prisons and the centrality of incarceration to contemporary art and culture, on view from September 17, 2020 through April 4, 2021. Featuring art made by people in prisons and work by nonincarcerated artists concerned with state repression, erasure, and imprisonment, Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration highlights more than 35 artists, including American Artist, Tameca Cole, Russell Craig, Maria Gaspar, James “Yaya” Hough, Jesse Krimes, Mark Loughney, Gilberto Rivera, and Sable Elyse Smith. The exhibition has been updated to reflect the growing COVID-19 crisis in US prisons, featuring new works by exhibition artists made in response to this ongoing emergency. Alongside the exhibition, a series of public programs, education initiatives, and ongoing projects at MoMA PS1 will explore the social and cultural impact of mass incarceration.

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INCCIP’s 3rd Biennial Virtual Conference

September 29, 2021 through October 01, 2021. Early Registration information will be posted soon.

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Cosmic Cowboy

Spring 2022
Emerson Paramount Center, Robert J. Orchard Stage Boston

You are the lone cowboy Silhouetted against your comet’s fiery tail Riding the endless cosmos Into the deepest darkness.

Inspired by the historic landing of the space probe Philae on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, Cosmic Cowboy explores the origins of the universe beginning at the Big Bang when the universe is formed by the mating of the Sumerian gods, Tiamat and Apsu. It traverses the mystery of time and space, through wormholes, black holes and alternate universes, until it comes full circle into the ultimate mystery – the human heart. Tia, Tiamat’s daughter, befriends the robotic probe and together, they confront the Astronaut from the spaceship Mayflower sent to retrieve the robot and to capture Tia, the first extra-terrestial known to us.

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Monkey: A Kung Fu Parable

2022
Boston

A new look at old Monkey, the greatest quest hero from ancient times

With his comrades-in-arms, Zhu, a heavenly Marshall reincarnated into a Pig for his evil, gluttonous ways, and Sha, once a princess, now a sand monster who devours unwary travellers, this unlikely trio journeys west. They become disciples and protectors of the Monk sent by Buddha to retrieve the holy Sutras in the hopes that this journey will bring each of them their own personal salvation. An ancient Wizard of Oz tale for our times.