Russell Jacobs
Pronouns: he/him
Research Mentor(s): Megan Holmes
Co-Presenter:
Research Mentor School/College/Department: History of Art / LSA
Presentation Date: April 20
Presentation Type: Poster
Session: Session 1 – 10am – 10:50am
Room: League Ballroom
Authors:
Presenter: 58
Abstract
“Visual Art and Incarceration†seeks to analyze the current state of arts programming within the carceral system, paying attention to the ways in which incarcerated individuals create art to reflect both upon their state of incarceration and the prison system at large. Rather than engaging in scholarship that asserts how prison arts programs treat incarcerated artists in need of rehabilitation, this project seeks to look at how art produced from the inside can reflect on the structural inequities that the carceral system perpetuates. This study is primarily rooted in analyzing secondary sourcework that focuses on both the history of mass incarceration of the U.S., as well as the specific art-making practices that emerge within prisons. A crucial element of this project is its reliance on various pieces of art that incarcerated individuals create during and after their experiences in confinement. This project highlights how pieces of art that have been made from within the system demonstrate a distinct “carceral aesthetic,†using the environment of the prison system to comment on its injustices. In doing so, it seeks to show how the carceral system in its present state acts as its own, unique institution of art production; this project will thus further contribute to research that demonstrates how art that incarcerated individuals make can be harnessed as a tool for liberation and self-determination, rather than prescribed as forms of therapy that perpetuate forms of deficit thinking onto incarcerated individuals.
Arts and Humanities
