VISUALIZING FREEDOM: A WORKSHOP ON ART, INCARCERATION & LIBERATION
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Saturday April 27 from 1:30 - 3:30
Studio 34, 4522 Baltimore Ave in Philadelphia
Join the LifeLines Project for a participatory arts workshop that explores the artwork featured in the How Are We Free exhibit, which was created collaboratively by people who have been sentenced to die in prison and visual artists from across the country. Participants will investigate – in hands on and creative ways – what freedom means in a society that routinely locks people in cages for decades, and what it would take to actually imagine a more liberatory and transformative future. This is an opportunity to engage more deeply with some of the artwork and the writings and process that generated them.
This workshop is the closing event for the How Are We Free exhibit at Studio 34. How Are We Free explores the nature of freedom and confinement through creative collaboration between people who have been sentenced to die in prison and visual artists outside the prison walls. Visual economies and regimes of power have been massively employed by the state and the media in order to criminalize people. This exhibit interrupts those regimes and instead invites viewers to investigate what actually creates conditions for safety, healing, justice, transformation, and liberation.
Accessibility info: Once you enter the door, there is a steep flight of stairs leading up to the space space.
HOW ARE WE FREE OPENS MARCH 22 AT STUDIO 34 IN PHILADELPHIA
Join the LifeLines Project at Studio 34 for the opening of the How Are We Free exhibit.
How Are We Free explores the nature of freedom and confinement through creative collaboration between people who have been sentenced to die in prison and visual artists outside the prison walls. Visual economies and regimes of power have been massively employed by the state and the media in order to criminalize people. This exhibit interrupts those regimes and instead invites viewers to investigate what actually creates conditions for safety, healing, justice, transformation, and liberation.
The event will feature work from the exhibit and a panel discussion with artists, incarcerated LifeLines members, and activists from the movement to end Death By Incarceration. The event will take place from 7-9 on Friday, March 22 at Studio 34 (4522 Baltimore Ave).
Panelists include Noelle Lorraine Williams, Kempis Ghani Songster, and Robert Saleem Holbrook. They will be joined via prerecorded audio by LifeLines members David “Dawud” Lee and Marie “Mechie” Scott.
The participating artists are: Makeba Rainey (Philadelphia), Noelle Lorraine Williams (New Jersey), Matice Moore (Baltimore), Alma Sheppard-Matsuo (Philadelphia), Gb Kim (Brooklyn), Robin Markle (Philadelphia), and Kate DeCiccio (Washington DC). Their collaborators on the inside are Clinton Walker, Terri Harper, Felix “Phill” Rosado, Avis Lee, David “Dawud” Lee, Marie “Mechie” Scott, and Charles Boyd.
Can’t make the opening? The exhibit will be up in Studio 34 until April 27th. Open hours are:
Mon – Thu: 10AM – 8PM
Fri: 10AM – 6PM
Sat-Sun: 10AM – 4PM
How Are We Free was produced by LifeLines: Voices Against the Other Death Penalty. The LifeLines Project is a media project conducted across the prison walls to highlight the voices and analysis of those serving Death By Incarceration sentences, more commonly known as Life Without Parole. More at http://Lifelines-Project.org.
PAST EXHIBITIONS AND EVENTS
Selections from the exhibit appeared as part of the Art As Resistance Gallery at Beyond the Walls: Reentry Summit and Prison Healthcare event on Friday October 5th from 8am to 5pm at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.
Selections of the How Are We Free exhibit traveled to Pittsburgh to be part of the Letters & Liberation exhibit. Letters & Liberation were up at the BOOM Concepts Gallery at 5139 Penn Ave in Pittsburgh from July 6th through July 29th.
Emily Abendroth spoke about the How Are We Free exhibit on a panel discussion Rendered: Art, Wrongful Imprisonment, and Guantánamo, featuring artist Debi Cornwall. The event took place on June 28th at 6pm at the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, 1400 North American Street #103 in Philadelphia.
Selections from the exhibit appeared as part of Women in Reentry Day Art Exhibit, which took place on May 9th at Broad Street Ministry.
How Are We Free was on display at the Scott Memorial Library at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia for the month of April.
A portion of the exhibit appeared at the Our (Digital) Humanity: Storytelling, Media Organizing and Social Justice Community Conference at Lehigh University on April 21st.
The exhibit opened at a one night event at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia on February 9th, 2018.