APRIL 18, 2025 PRISON ART Art intel: Prison art reflections I attended a wonderful event at the University of Michigan Duderstadt Gallery. The event, called the Annual Exhibition of Art by Michigan Prisoners, is a result of U-M facilitation of the creation of art projects by many prisoners from Michigan — right at the prison. The Prison Creative Arts Project also allows the incarcerated to take classes in art. The resulting pieces of art, all on display at the gallery, range vastly from rococo painting and classical arts to abstractions and amazing sculptures, as well as crafts in paper arts and spray painting on fabrics. With the photos I took, what I tried to do as a former arts teacher was to show the extreme variety of the arts, including my favorites within the project. This show was from March 18 to April 1, and on the first night many artworks were sold, with the proceeds going to the prisoners. This helps them pay for basic needs as well as more paints and supplies for the next year's arts projects. The talent is absolutely amazing … ENGAGEMENT from page 4 Center service-recipient, shared, “The Engagement Center can lead people to recovery. They let me stay there until I went to Dawn Farm. That was the beginning of my recovery; now I’ve been sober for close to three years. “It's like they don’t want people to seek help, they want us to stay sick.” Williams commented that Home of New Vision is working behind the scenes to get something in that space that is semi-similar in some capacity. The Engagement Center in Jackson, Mich. is still open and fully operational due to its divergent funding sources. CINDY GERE Groundcover vendor No. 279 There were images where I was shocked about how much detail and true thought processes had gone into them. One work I found very powerful was the "See No, Hear No, Speak No Justice" art piece. This spoke to me hard. I felt the artist was talking about a truly universal issue when it comes to incarceration. This idea of not hearing the people at all with regards to being become a real issue in our society, to the point that the psychiatric institutions are now diagnosing being in long Other Home of New Vision programs impacted by the ARPA work-stopage include their Women's Speciality Program (51% ARPA funding), ROOT Quick Response Team (see article page 4), and harm reduction (13%). This has resulted in lay-offs and service reductions. Dawn Farm raised over $40,000 in three days which will prevent any immediate service disruptions for the Strong Roots families. term incarceration as a real mental illness. The long-term trauma of imprisonment can turn into PTSD and sadly, there may be suicide linked to it, which we don’t talk about at all. The trauma may also lead to reoffending, sometimes because of the idea that a person becomes totally dependent on the system — as in “I can't take living in society, I only know how to live in the prison system, I can only live in the prison system.” This diagnosis is slowly being recognized as a real disorder and some people are in fact on disability for it. We need to address these issues and rethink prisons. There is a very powerful system of institutionalized has now incarceration that is modelled after British Columbian native tribes in Canada where each person spends time finding ways in nature to show their apology to victims, family and community after living off the land and reconciliation to nature and one's self. At the end, the prisoner rediscovers oneself and gives back to the community and family they trangressed GROUNDCOVER NEWS 7 See No, Speak No, Hear No Justice. Robert Tate, acrylic. 2025. against. To me, prison is putting people in cages, much like a zoo, and we humans are way better than that. I think it's time to completely gut the system and bring back a more direct approach of taking full responsibility, showing remorse, and giving restitution to the family or community directly.
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