"Living Inside the World: Artwork from Michigan's Prisons" in LookOut! Art Gallery
From October 5 to 23, 2015, visit the RCAH LookOut! Art Gallery for Living Inside the World, an exhibit organized by Prison Creative Arts Project (PCAP) at the University of Michigan and curated by Charlie Michaels. Living Inside the World features paintings, drawings, and sculptures by artists currently incarcerated in the state of Michigan. The featured artists demonstrate an intensive commitment to visual art as a personal creative practice and a form of communicating and engaging with the world outside prison walls.
RCAH LookOut! Art Gallery is open Monday through Friday, 12 to 3 p.m. Visiting the exhibit and attending the events below are free and open to the public.
Header image: Duane Montney, The Grind, Charcoal
Reception and Panel Discussion
On Thursday, October 8, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. in LookOut! Art Gallery, join PCAP and RCAH for an opening reception and panel discussion about art and incarceration.
Panelists will include:
- Charlie Michaels: Michaels is a Curator of the Annual Exhibition of Art by Michigan Prisoners, a yearly exhibition of art by incarcerated artists organized by the Prison Creative Arts Project at the University of Michigan where he also teaches and coordinates socially engaged art & design courses.
- Mary Heinen: Heinen is a Soros Justice Fellow and the Co-Founder of the Prison Creative Arts Project. Mary works with families who are suffering from poverty and are directly affected by mass incarceration. She helped create The Prison Arts Coalition.
- Reuben Kenyatta: Kenyatta is a Lansing based painter, muralist, public speaker, and proponent of the creative process as a practice of healing. His work has been featured in local and national exhibitions, events, and media outlets including the Huffington Post.
- Dr. Jim Dankovich: Dankovich is a long time resident of Birmingham, Michigan where he practiced for 30 years. He has a son who was incarcerated at the age of 15 as an adult. A member of multiple community, educational, and legislative reform groups, he said he feels honored to be on this panel.
Performances
Two staged readings of “Justice for Maurice Henry Carter” by Donald Molnar & Alicia Payne and directed by RCAH professor Lisa Biggs will take place in conjunction with the Living Inside the World exhibit.
"Justice for Maurice Henry Carter" is a powerful drama based on the true story of Doug Tjapkes, a former broadcast journalist and church organ salesman, and Maurice Henry Carter, a wrongly convicted man serving time for shooting a Benton Harbor police officer. For ten years, these two men struggled to secure Carter’s freedom with a team of volunteers and students from the Innocence Project, forging a unique friendship -- and brotherhood -- along the way.
Performance times include:
- October 15, 7 p.m. in RCAH Theater
- October 18, 7 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Greater Lansing
Admission for both venues is free.
