Please write to info@thejusticeartscoalition.org if you have an event for us to share!
Events can also be found on our Google calendar.
Art + Agency
Jan. 19, 2022
7 PM EST
Please join the JAC Community for an introduction to our Art + Agency initiative, and an open dialogue and restorative conversation facilitated by Page Dukes and Anooj Bhandari. Within Justice Arts Coalition, as we look to both the near-and-distant futures, we want to think about what it means for us as a community to grow skills together in recognizing, interrupting, and responding to harm. We hope to harness a conversation around ethics within our work with people in prison, and how to ensure that we’re engaging with the artists we work with as well as the art they make through practices that are empowering, non-exploitative, and can hopefully lead to shifts of larger trends we see within this work at-large. It is our hope that talking about ethics and non-exploitative practice can both create a more solidaritas coalition, and support us in exploring more specific moments of harm when ethical questions and/or issues of exploitation arise.
This event is free with a suggested donation of $10. Please consider a contribution to support us in providing compensation to the facilitators. Register here.
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Hearts.Brains.Battles. By Christine Hippeli
Jan. 14 – Jan. 30, 2022
Opening Reception Jan. 14, 6 – 9 pm PST
115 W. 4th St, Long Beach, CA 90802
Abstract mixed media works on paper by Christine Hippeli (@bloodyknycklesart on Instagram) opens January 14th at Studio115 and runs through the end of the month. Come celebrate the opening of Christine Hippeli’s first solo show! 10% of all sales will be donated to JAC.
In light of current pandemic conditions, you must show proof of vaccinations (at least 2 doses) and remain masked at all times while inside the gallery.
View Christine’s online shop here.
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PEN America 2021 Prison Writing Awards
Dec. 15, 2021
7 – 8:30 PM EST
PEN America and Brooklyn Public Library are proud to celebrate the launch of the 2021 PEN America Prison Writing Awards Anthology with a dynamic virtual reading of literature from incarcerated writers, performed by authors, actors, and activists, including Jacqueline Woodson, Baratunde Thurston, Mitchell S. Jackson, Piper Kerman, Nate Marshall, Herb Boyd and more…
Nearly two years into the pandemic, the isolation of life behind bars has reached an excruciating pitch, with devastating death tolls, unsafe conditions, and limited contact with loved ones. PEN America and BPL continue to extend services, resources, and solidarity to the vibrant literary community behind the walls. In addition to spotlighting our prize-winning works, this event will be made available to incarcerated New Yorkers on Department of Correction tablets, and purchases of the celebrated anthology will allow us to send copies into jails and prisons via BPL’s Justice Initiatives.
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Let’s Get Free’s 5th Annual Art Show:
Empathy is the Seed
Truth is the Water
Solidarity is the Bloomage
Nov. 19 – Dec. 19, 2021
At the Brew House Gallery as well as online
Featuring artists in prison & artists in solidarity with those in prison. Each artist responds to, creates from or embodies ingredients of abolition; the work to build and maintain a movement, the call for freedom, the desire to be seen, the presence and insistence on humanity, the practice of resistance and the true magic of possibility and what can be. This year’s show features 34 artists in prison and 35 artists in solidarity expressing a range of media, from watercolor to cross stitch to sculpture.
Gallery hours: Thursday 2 – 7 pm est; Friday & Saturday 11 – 4 pm est
Empathy is the Seed Poetry Reading
Dec. 13th, 2021
7 – 8:30 pm est
40 poems by people in prison. At Brew House 711 21st southside. In person and zoom options. Zoom link will be posted at linktr.ee/womeninprison.
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2020/2021 Prison Arts Program Annual Show
July 24 – Dec. 31, 2021
At the Mark Twain House & Museum open 10 am – 4:30 pm, seven days a week
Create + Connect Workshop with Moyo: An Artist on Death Row
Cover art: My African American Stuck Dream, by Moyo
Nov. 15, 2021
7:00 PM EST
Born and raised in San Antonio, Texas, Moyo has been in solitary confinement on Texas Death Row for 20 years, sentenced and convicted when he was 18 years old.
In this online workshop we will be presenting new artwork from Moyo, featuring readings from his essays that provide context to each piece. Moyo will be extending the opportunity for attendees to participate in a collaborative work centered around origami cranes and will be speaking to the scheduled execution of Julius Jones.
“My art has taken aim at the criminal punishment system. It has been deployed from inside this cell in rural Texas – armed with the philosophy of non-violent resistance. Its mission simple: demonstrate that there exists a transformative spirituality within people sentenced death, which has not been imagined by the current system.”
Moyo will be extending the opportunity for attendees to participate in a collaborative work centered around origami cranes and will be speaking to the scheduled execution of Julius Jones.
Register here.
To see more of Moyo’s work please visit buddhasondeathrow.com
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Sing Out Strong: Incarcerated Voices
Nov. 20, 2021
7:30 PM EST
The pandemic has changed our entire way of life. It has changed the way we work, recreate, eat, learn, teach, interact with friends and family. It has forced us to confront the fact that life is precarious, fragile and precious. It has exposed the great divide in American society, with black and brown people disproportionately succumbing to the virus, as compared to white people. This is even truer for those who are incarcerated en masse and for the long term in our prison systems.
We’ve collected stories from writers experiencing incarceration about their experiences exiled from families, friends and community. We’ve heard about what they do, how they’ve been coping, their hopes, their fears, their families and their despair – anything they’re moved to write about. We come away awed by their essential brilliance as they find new ways of dreaming, of communing, of living, of transcending.
The concert you’ll be attending features ten songs based on the texts we’ve collected set by diverse composers inspired to tell these stories. Through the magic of a new audio plugin, Tutti Remote, invented by Jon Robertson, our audio engineer, you will hear LIVE singing by our two singers and LIVE playing by our cellist and pianist as they perform in the safety of their homes. We can’t wait to share this experience with you.
Experience ten songs, newly composed by ten composers, with texts by incarcerated poets. Proceeds will benefit the Justice Arts Coalition.
Register here!
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We Belong Here: Reclaiming Our Space Through Art
Oct. 24 – Nov. 20, 2021
JAC’s second exhibition of the season, We Belong Here: Reclaiming Our Space Through Art will be on view at Rhizome DC from October 24 through November 20. The exhibition features over 50 works and will center the work of JAC network artists from the DC area, including participants in our CorrespondARTS program.
Please join us for an opening reception from 2:00-5:00pm on 10/24. This reception will include readings and performances by Free Minds Book Club and Voices Unbarred (outdoors) and guests will be able to tour the exhibition in small groups and hear interviews with featured artists. A virtual gallery of works in the exhibition will be available on JAC’s website to accompany the launch of the physical exhibition.
Opening Reception
Oct. 24, 2021
2 – 5 pm EST
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Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration
Sept. 17 – Dec. 11, 2021
“Marking Time” features works that bear witness to artists’ experimentation with, and reimagining of the fundamentals of, living under punitive governance as they push the possibilities of these basic features of daily experience to create new visions of justice and healing. The resulting work is often laborious, time-consuming and immersive, as incarcerated artists manage penal time through their works and experiment with the material constraints that shape artmaking in prison.
Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts at the University of Alabama at Birmingham will host the major exhibition exploring the works of artists within prisons in the United States and the centrality of incarceration to contemporary art and culture. Featuring art made by people in prisons and works by nonincarcerated artists concerned with state repression, erasure and imprisonment, “Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration” highlights more than 30 artists. Including JAC network artists who were featured in Marking Time at MoMAPs1 last year and will be featured in this traveling exhibition: Conor Broderick, James Sepesi, Cedar Annenkovna, Will Livingston, Amber Daniel, Gary Harrell, Aimee Wissman, Rowan Renee, along with JAC network friends Russell Craig, Halim Flowers, and James Yaya Hough.
Associated Public Programs:
Nov. 10, 2021
“Mass Incarceration on Trial”
6 pm CT
UAB’s Mock Trial team and Brandon L. Blankenship, director of the Pre-Law Program in the UAB College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Criminal Justice, is partnering with UAB advocacy students to bring the “Marking Time” exhibit to life in a showcase mock trial. The hybrid event will be held at AEIVA and virtually via Zoom. Registration is required to attend this event virtually. Register online.
Nov. 11, 2021
“Spoken Word at AEIVA”
6 – 7 pm CT
Readings created by and read by UAB’s Department of English students with select readings from the Jefferson County Memorial Project blog by alumni of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute’s Youth Legacy program. Registration is required to attend this event virtually. Register online.
Dec. 1, 2021
“Men’s Training, A Special Reading”
6 pm CT
“Theatre’s Call to Action,” a Birmingham Southern College course, will present a special reading of “Men’s Training” by Daoud Boone, a playwright who is incarcerated at Limestone Correctional Facility. Registration is required to attend this virtual event. Register online.
Dec. 7, 2o21
Virtual AEIVA “Marking Time” Closing Event
6 – 7:30 pm CT
Join AEIVA for an engaging discussion with several artists featured in the “Marking Time” exhibition focusing on centering incarceration in their art. Moderated by curator Nicole Fleetwood, Ph.D. Registration is required to attend this virtual event. Register online.
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Free Your Mind: Art and Incarceration in Michigan
Aug. 28 – Dec. 12, 2021
Free Your Mind: Art and Incarceration in Michigan invites us to consider the transformative qualities of art, while also grappling with the carceral system and the many ways it affects the lives of all of us. The exhibition centers on four key topics of inquiry: Michigan’s length of sentencing and overcrowding in prisons; the impact of incarceration on women; youth incarceration; and the dangers of COVID-19. Free Your Mind features artists, poets, and storytellers of great achievement. The majority of these artists are either currently or formerly incarcerated. Their works on view invite us to consider the role art-making plays in prisons as a liberating force, and offer unique perspectives on the experience of incarceration. The works also invite us to approach the subject of incarceration with an open mind. Free Your Mind aims to cultivate a greater sense of empathy for those directly impacted by incarceration and an understanding that their growth as individuals is linked to the greater health of the society we all live in, together.
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Undoing Time: Art and Histories of Incarceration
“Undoing Time: Art and Histories of Incarceration” considers the foundational roots of confinement from an art historical perspective to better understand the fact that today’s mass incarceration crisis is centuries in the making. The exhibition explores how images throughout time contribute to entrenched cultural beliefs associated with today’s carceral system. The exhibition includes 12 never-before-seen, commissioned artworks from contemporary artists whose work combines history, research and storytelling in material form. Miki Garcia, director of the ASU Art Museum, says, “This exhibition was inspired by filmmaker Ava DuVernay’s strategy in her documentary “13th,” which uses history as a lens to understand present-day phenomena and as a way to trace how legacies of the past persist to this day.”
“Undoing Time” opens at the ASU Art Museum Sept. 1.
Associated Public Programs:
All programming is free and open to the public. Please RSVP for each program you are interested in attending.
Nov. 13, 2021
We Occupy/We Dis-cover
1–4 pm MST; 3 – 7 pm EST. ASU Art Museum.
Gregory Sale, associate professor in the School of Art, and Julio César Morales, senior curator at ASU Art Museum
In response to and part of the exhibition, a group of community justice scholars, artists and ASU graduate students will take over the museum to unseat, dis-locate and de-center notions of safety, imprisonment and control. Visit us and participate in a day of interventions, conversations and performances. After engaging in this transformative community work focused on mass incarceration, participants will leave with full hearts and minds. Organizers of this event are enrolled in ASU School of Art’s Art and Justice course, (ARA 591) taught by Gregory Sale and Julio César Morales.
Jan. 20, 2022
“Undoing Time” Roundtable
6 pm MST; 8 pm EST. ASU Art Museum. Or attend virtually.
Natalie Diaz, Maxine and Jonathan Marshall Chair in Modern and Contemporary Poetry, Associate Professor
Stay tuned for more information.
Feb. 3, 2022
Undoing Time Roundtable: Critical Witnessing
6 pm MST; 8 pm EST. ASU Art Museum. Or attend virtually.
Vice Provost and Professor Tiffany Lopez
Join Vice Provost and Professor Tiffany Lopez in a roundtable discussion about “critical witnessing.” This is a term Dr. Lopez coined to describe the process of stepping into a space of personal and/or social transformation as the direct result of experiencing a work of art that clarifies that one is part of the continuum of the work. Critical witnessing is the experience of seeing a work of art and realizing you do not want to directly participate in or indirectly perpetuate the history of violence and trauma in an artwork. The experience of the work brings a shift from passive viewer to active witness with critical awareness, emerging toward a path of change.
Feb. 8, 2022
Dreaming Beyond the Carceral State
6 pm MST; 8 pm EST Virtual.
Ashley Hunt and Juan Brenner with organizers from Mass Liberation
What would it look like to live in a world without prisons? Join artists Ashley Hunt and Juan Brenner, with organizers from Mass Liberation, for a public conversation considering possibilities for justice and fairness that do not include a prison system.
This program is organized in collaboration with the ASU Art Museum, Performance in the Borderlands, the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy and Social Transformation Lab.
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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.
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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
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Artists Dismantling Capitalism
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.