I also put together a whole display on a prisoner-initiated and autonomously-run project, the WOMMB Institute, that's helping guys focus on positive personal and community development in an enviroment under seige by prison gangs. It was developed by a lifer in AZ DOC's Winslow prison with whom I've been corresponding for the past year. Here's the blog I started for WOMMB over the summer, which gives you a good sense of what he's all about.
On December 30, the Last Monday of 2013, we'll also be opening the gallery for two special events, back-to-back. If you're bored silly the night before New Year's eve, come out and support us - especially loved ones of prisoners out there. In fact, this would be a great chance to meet others in your shoes - and to meet me, if we only know eachother by Facebook and email so far. Bring something to eat if you plan to hang out all evening - either your own dinner or a dish to pass - or just drop in at any point throughout the night. We'll open at 6pm and probably close up around 10 or 11.
At 6pm, we'll have the following:https://www.facebook.com/events/637501102963089/
The Shadow of Lucasville (Directed by D Jones - 60 minutes)
Follow-up to the award winning
documentary film, The Great Incarcerator, part 1: Dark Little Secret
The Shadow of Lucasville revisits the
1993 uprising at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, one of the
longest in U.S. history, while exploring the fight for human rights
and media exposure through inmate uprisings in response to mass
incarceration and dehumanization supported by the prison industrial
complex.
The film will be followed by conversation with
death-sentenced survivors of the uprising, who will be calling in
from the Ohio State Penitentiary, Ohio's supermax prison.
Then, at 8pm, Insurgent Theater will perform:
Behind the Badge: A Theatrical Examination of Police and
Prison in America.
Written by Ben Turk, Directed by Kate
Pleuss, Performed by Ben Turk – 90 minutes
What does it mean to be a compassionate, dedicated, humane police officer in the country with the world's highest incarceration rate and a continuing tradition of racial injustice? Insurgent Theatre brings audiences behind the badge of a neighborhood liaison officer, using stripped-down interactive theatre and a radical analysis to peer into the inner life of a man in blue.