While incarcerated in California, author and illustrator Angelo was invited by art practice and publication Temporary Services to document the various things he’d seen his peers invent, ranging from immersion heaters to tattoo ink, pillows and chessboards. His findings—which are a testament to the ways prisons deny people basic necessities as well as the inventiveness of people who are incarcerated—were collected and published in 2003 …
Imagining Freedom is a new initiative from the Andrew W Mellon Foundation that is granting $125 million to art and humanities organizations that focus on mass incarceration. The foundation has already donated $40 million to these projects, including the book and exhibition Marking Time, which debuted at NYC’s MoMA PS1. Written and curated by Nicole Fleetwood, that project showcased visual art made by people currently or …
For 15 years, photographer Peter Merts has documented people who are incarcerated as they participate in prison arts programs. The portraits, which have been released in Merts’ new book, Ex Crucible: The Passion of Incarcerated Artists, reveal new perspectives about the limits of the carceral system as well as the power of the arts. One such image depicts the theater class at Ironwood State Prison and focuses …
