Curated by Melaine Ferdinand-King, PhD Candidate in Africana Studies, “Art and The Freedom Struggle: The Works of Mumia Abu-Jamal,” is a creative companion to the biographical “Mumia Abu-Jamal: A Portrait of Mass Incarceration” exhibit on view at the John Hay Library at Brown University. Inspired by Mumia Abu-Jamal’s 2012 essay, “Art & Incarceration,” this exhibition underscores the significance of creation under crisis.
Known internationally as a political prisoner, Abu-Jamal warrants considerable attention as an artist and cultural critic. In depicting historical figures, pop culture icons, and personal visions, Abu-Jamal reveals how artistic production functions as a mode of self-expression, a junction between “inside” and “outside” worlds, and a powerful tool for social commentary. His paintings, drawings, poetry, and musical compositions disclose, in part, the interests and concerns of an outsider-observer committed to freedom and being free while making sense of a carceral state. Themes throughout the exhibition include abolition, Black liberation, community-building, music, and sports.
The gallery also serves as an activation space. While experiencing the works on display, viewers are encouraged to reflect on Abu-Jamal’s story alongside their individual agency and relationship to the notion of struggle. We aim to spark engaged activity on the local level related to issues of mass incarceration and spirited dialogue on the importance of responding creatively in times of political duress.
AMOR is an alliance of community based grassroots organizations mobilizing at the intersections of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and immigration status to prevent, to respond to, and to end state violence against our community. We work to create a space where the community can demand accountability, challenge injustices, and access healing after experiencing violence. We are organizing to place sovereignty back into the hands of communities directly affected by systemic oppression and to build leadership, generate power, create sustainability and organize resistance with and alongside all directly affected peoples.
Black & Pink National is a prison abolitionist organization dedicated to abolishing the criminal punishment system and liberating LGBTQIA2S+ people and people living with HIV/AIDS who are affected by that system through advocacy, support, and organizing.
RE’s mission is to organize low-income families living in communities of color for social, economic, and political justice. The Tenant and Homeowner Association (THA) is a DARE campaign committee led by low-income tenants and homeowners living in communities of color, who are facing eviction, foreclosure, and unsafe housing conditions. We are a community of people who have been impacted by incarceration. Some have records and others are loved ones of people behind bars. Our community’s victories include voting rights for formerly incarcerated people; increased access to public housing for folks with records; and Ban the Box legislation that made it illegal for an employer to require an applicant to disclose their record. We believe that building strong communities is necessary if we are to reduce our society’s reliance on incarceration.
Founded in 2014, The FANG Collective leads direct action campaigns to create a more just world, working intersectionally to bring communities together to enact powerful change.
The Stop Torture RI Coalition is an alliance of local community organizers, formerly incarcerated people and their loved ones, direct service providers, students, and other concerned people all working to end the use of extended solitary confinement by passing the Reform Solitary Confinement Act. The coalition is provided guidance and oversight by an elected Steering Committee. The majority of the Steering Committee is comprised of individuals that are survivors of solitary confinement.
AS220 is an artist-run organization committed to providing an unjuried and uncensored forum for the arts. AS220 offers artists opportunities to live, work, exhibit and/or perform in its facilities, which include several rotating gallery spaces, a performance stage, a black-box theater, a print shop, a darkroom and media arts lab, a fabrication and electronics lab, a dance studio, a youth program focusing on youth under state care and in the juvenile detention facilities, four dozen affordable live/work studios for artists, and a bar and restaurant. AS220’s facilities and services are available to any artist who needs a place to exhibit, perform, or create original work and its classes and public-access studios are among the most affordable in the nation.
New Urban Arts (NUA) is a welcoming community of high school students and adult mentors in Providence sharing space, skills, and resources to inspire creative expression. NUA’s student-led approach to learning enables young people to discover their power and develop agency. NUA is a haven from the many pressures and systemic inequities young people navigate daily.
Public is an African & Latina owned creative art space based in Providence RI. The space hosts monthly art exhibitions, an open mic, community building programming, and occasional comedy shows, film screenings, pop-ups, collaborative events, and more.
Queer.Archive.Work. (QAW) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) library, publishing studio, and residency serving supporting artists and writers with free, open access to space and resources for experimental publishing, with a special focus on queer practices. QAW includes 