Incarcerated Artists and Authors Shed Light on Prison Censorship hyperallergic.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from hyperallergic.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Rachel Zarrow March 17, 2021Updated: March 18, 2021, 1:07 pm
An adaption of artist jackie sumell’s “Solitary Gardens” at UC Santa Cruz. The garden plots are meant to represent a solitary confinement cell, taking up the same 6-by-9-foot space. The plants, which are selected remotely by an incarcerated person in solitary confinement, only grow in the spaces where humans would usually be able to walk in the cell. Photo: R.R. Jones
In the 2017 book “How To Do Politics With Art,” Lilian Mathieu describes how the arts play an important role in protest.
“It provides material and symbolic resources,” the French sociologist writes. Art “contributes to movement framing, mobilizes constituencies, sensitizes the broader public, and produces social change by renewing cultural traditions.”
Rahsaan Thomas, photographed by Antwan Williams. Courtesy of Ear Hustle.
For Rahsaan “New York” Thomas, success came later in life and at a cost. After being incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison in California, Thomas began to work with organizations and initiatives using creative forces to combat mass incarceration and shift attitudes about prisoners from the inside.
He is now the co-host of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated podcast “Ear Hustle,” co-founder of Prison Renaissance (which connects prisoners to people outside), contributor to multiple national news outlets, and staff writer at the
San Quentin News. He has written about the devastating impact of the coronavirus on prisoners and the prison system for Insider, the Prison Journalism Project, Current, and more.