Paulina Perez Balderrama
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Research Mentor(s): Isaac Wingfield
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Residential College / LSA
Program: UROP
Session: Session 3 (11:00am – 11:50am)
Authors: Paulina Pérez Balderrama, Isaac Wingfield
Abstract
Humanize the Numbers is a collaborative photography project between inmates and University of Michigan students, which will be exhibited at the Detroit Historical Museum in the spring of 2023. The prison system is largely invisible, but there are people in prison—people with complex lives just like those who are outside of prison. The costs of the prison system are carried both by the people inside and outside prison; the impact of just one incarcerated person extends beyond the walls of the prison to that individual’s family, friends, and communities. Humanize The Numbers aims to demonstrate the complex lives and feelings of incarcerated men, how they too are people and are not their inmate number or just another statistic to mass incarceration. It does so through intertwining facts and information of the prison system with the personal narratives of those inside it. The collaborative workshop organized through the Prison Creative Arts Project is available for students through a Residential College photography class, and has been available since 2015, with the exception of 2021 due to Covid-19. After looking through the photo archive of nearly 600 photos of all the years, I chose 45 final photographs to be exhibited. The works are organized into five smaller thematic sections of their experience in the system, humanization, community and family, coping, and self-reflection. Beyond curating the photo portion of the exhibit, I also aided with the writing of labels for each photo. Along with, attended interviews with formerly incarcerated men, for the completion of a media piece. In conclusion, this exhibition will bring some of the diverse faces, voices, perspectives, and stories of people who are in prison out into a public space. It will highlight the personal impacts and costs of the prison system, encourage empathy-building with people who are in prison, and Inspire future action in support of people who are in prison.
