READINGS AT THE INTERSECTION OF ART AND POLITICS

Free Write Anthologies
In the summer of 2000, Free Write began working one-on-one with incarcerated youth in hopes of improving their print literacy skills. The project readily expanded to include arts workshops, resulting in densely packed and widely distributed anthologies and public exhibitions of student work. To date, Free Write has published eight anthologies, installed over 50 public exhibitions, and worked alongside over 10,000 detained and criminalized youth and young adults.

Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration by Nicole R. Fleetwood
More than two million people are currently behind bars in the United States. Incarceration not only separates the imprisoned from their families and communities; it also exposes them to shocking levels of deprivation and abuse and subjects them to the arbitrary cruelties of the criminal justice system. Yet, as Nicole Fleetwood reveals, America’s prisons are filled with art. Despite the isolation and degradation they experience, the incarcerated are driven to assert their humanity in the face of a system that dehumanizes them.

We Wanted A Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85 - Sourcebook and New Perspectives by Catherine Morris and Rujeko Hockley
Focusing on the work of black women artists, We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85 examines the political, social, cultural, and aesthetic priorities of women of color during the emergence of second-wave feminism. It is the first exhibition to highlight the voices and experiences of women of color—distinct from the primarily white, middle-class mainstream feminist movement—in order to reorient conversations around race, feminism, political action, art production, and art history in this significant historical period.

Connecting Breaths by Romi Crawford
“I can’t breathe”—these are now America’s defining words. Back once again in the national imagination, the words refer to Eric Garner, the young black man who died from a chokehold by a New York City policeman in 2014. At this point, there are so many accrued police-violence cases that a tally should be in the making, not unlike the tallies that have rolled out each day to monitor COVID-19 deaths. Perhaps they should be combined?