The Weisman's spring exhibition features work by incarcerated artists made in collaboration with local artists and activists “on the outside,” to illuminate life behind bars and connections to community

NEWS

The Weisman's spring exhibition features work by incarcerated artists made in collaboration with local artists and activists “on the outside,” to illuminate life behind bars and connections to community

December 19, 2024

The dimensions of a typical prison cell have been outlined in masking tape on a black cement floor. A person lays on his side in the outline of the bed.

This spring, Weisman Art Museum (WAM) will present SEEN, an exhibition created as part of a years-long collaboration with We Are All Criminals (WAAC), curated by WAAC director and founder, Emily Baxter. The exhibition is on view from February 8 - May 18, 2025. Admission to WAM’s galleries is always free and open to all.

In conjunction with this exhibition, WAM will hold an Community Day on Saturday, February 8, with special programming throughout the afternoon. There will be artist-led activities in the gallery all day, as well as light refreshments for visitors. All opening day activities are free and open to the public.

SEEN features currently incarcerated artists in collaboration with artists, activists, and academics in the Twin Cities community. Together they explore issues of incarceration, isolation, healing, and coming home. Representing a range of cultural, personal, and professional backgrounds and diverse forms of artistic expression, people on the “inside” partnered with people on the “outside” based on shared creative curiosities and personal affinities. This exhibition is arranged across two galleries to evoke the experiences of “inside” (carceral) and “outside” (healing and community).

The seven installations in the exhibition stretch the bounds of the museum as a site for community engagement and critical examination of American carceral institutions. Teams worked together to better understand and explore isolation and trauma of the carceral system, and the many ways it causes generational harm.

Guest curator Emily Baxter says, “We are not attempting to erase or ignore the harm done. Nor are we diminishing the humanity of the people who have committed harm, the people behind and beyond bars. They are our friends and family.”

She goes on, “This show helps to celebrate that connection and community, while interrogating the carceral state and aspiring to create a reflective, restorative space for everyone to heal.”

a plastic tub is filled with various belongings - shoes, drawings, books, tools, art supplies, etc - to indicate the amount of personal belongings an incarcerated person is allowed to keep with them

We Are All Criminals (WAAC), a nonprofit organization dedicated to challenging society’s perceptions of what it means to be “criminal,” fostered the development and presentation of this exhibition and the larger SEEN project over the past six years. The wider SEEN platform serves as a catalyst for conversations about race, class, privilege, and punishment. One in four people in the United States—and one in four in Minnesota—carries a criminal record, yet four in four have a criminal history.

Our criminal legal system disparately targets Black people, Indigenous people, people of color, and people experiencing poverty, resulting in higher rates and weights of criminal records. Permanent and public criminal records perpetuate inequities in housing, employment, and education, all of which precludes millions of people from countless opportunities to move on and move up. WAAC uses first-person stories, photography, law, and statistics to humanize and shift the narratives of crime, privilege, policy interpretation and implementation, and redemption.

A person's eyes, wearing sunglasses, are visible in the rearview mirror of a car driving through a city neighborhood. The caption text reads "I am haunted by those years away from home"

The collaborative exhibition SEEN and its related public programs aim to illuminate the effects of mass incarceration by clearing the pathways for people behind bars to have their voices heard, faces seen, and humanity recognized.

Senior Curator Diane Mullin explains: “In a moment of renewed scrutiny of policing and incarceration in the US, WAM presents SEEN to offer a thoughtful forum for consideration of the issues of incarceration, isolation, healing, and coming home.”

Featured artists: B Batchelor and Emily Baxter; Sarith Peou and Carl Flink; Ronald “Bino” Greer II and Diane Willow; Lennell “Fresh” Martin and Erin Sharkey; Von Johnson and D.A. Bullock; Jeffery Young, C Fausto Cabrera, and Korina Barry; and Fong Lee and Kevin Yang.

This exhibition was curated by Emily Baxter—an attorney, activist, photographer, and executive director of We Are All Criminals, which is dedicated to amplifying the voices of those most impacted by the criminal justice system.

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund. General operating support is generously provided by Ameriprise Financial and the Art and Martha Kaemmer Fund of HRK Foundation. Special thanks to the KHR McNeely Family Fund, thanks to Kevin, Rosemary, and Hannah Rose McNeely, for their support of the Weisman's exhibitions and exhibition-related programming.

Image credits: (Top) Sarith Peou and Carl Flink, cage(d) (video still), 2024. Mixed-media installation. Courtesy of the artists and Weisman Art Museum. (Middle) Lennell “Fresh” Martin and Erin Sharkey, Rootbound (bin detail), 2024. Mixed-media installation. Photo by Rik Sferra, courtesy of Weisman Art Museum. (Bottom) Fong Lee and Kevin Yang, While We’re All Still Here (video still), 2024. Mixed media installation. Courtesy of the artists.

We Are All Criminals

About the Organization

We Are All Criminals

We Are All Criminals is a catalyst for conversations about race, class, privilege, and punishment. One in four people in the United States±—and one in four in Minnesota—carries a criminal record, yet four in four have a criminal history. Our criminal legal system disparately targets Black people, Indigenous people, people of color, and people experiencing poverty, resulting in higher rates and weights of criminal records. It’s no small number of individuals and families affected, and to no small degree: permanent and public criminal records perpetuate inequities in housing, employment, and education all of which precludes millions of people from countless opportunities to move on and move up. We at WAAC use first-person narrative, photography, law, and statistics, to humanize and shift the narratives of crime, privilege, policy interpretation and implementation, and redemption.

Mass incarceration is dependent upon the ignoring and erasure of the human beings we cage. Projects like SEEN challenge that. In collaboration with the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop, Weisman Art Museum, and the thoughtful and deeply gifted writers and artists on the inside, WAAC disrupts mass incarceration by clearing the pathways for people behind bars to have their voices heard, faces seen, and humanity recognized—and for people on the outside to reckon with the inhumanity of our country’s mass incarceration mass disaster.