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

FEATURED ESSAY

What's In Your Bin?

In the SEEN exhibition, you will consider the daily lives of people who live inside the walls of carceral spaces. The media have sensationalized the practical matters of the lives of the incarcerated, while hiding many of the realities of their experiences from public view. Their lives are unseen by design—designed that way so that the folks living behind bars, and the impacts of our system of imprisonment, are more easily forgotten. The distance is obscuring. 

Let me explain what I mean, starting with something simple: the humble property bin. 

A few years ago, I was sitting in the waiting room at Lino Lakes Correctional, in a holding space between the free world and the classroom where I teach creative writing to a bunch of guys who like to write. There, in the waiting room with me, was a group of volunteers from a prison ministry program who were milling around, waiting for the guard to direct us through the metal detectors. The volunteers carried heavy brown boxes, about 10” by 12,” and maybe 4” thick. Inside the boxes were bibles for each of the participants of their ministry program. They were so excited to present their gifts.  One man told another that he liked how big and heavy they were, how substantial. And I couldn’t help but think of the size of a property bin.  

**

Imagine fitting your life into two plastic storage totes. Let’s say each is like 25 gallons. Maybe these two bins fit under your bed. 

Before filling your bin, remember to save room for some required items. You need to make sure there is room for the clothes they issue you to wear—once a year, you get a fresh set of what they call "whites"—briefs, socks, t-shirts, or bra; a coat for the cold season that may still be far off and a winter hat, because it will be winter here in Minnesota, and you need to protect your ears walking between buildings. You aren’t inside all day; you are moving all the time. To and from your job, activities, a class, a group. 

There are practical concerns that dictate what needs to go in your bin. You should keep your important papers close by, so that you can participate in your legal process.

Now, think about the books you’d want near—but no more than ten, per Department of Corrections rules. Think about the drawing your daughter sent you for your birthday or maybe your nephew’s letter announcing the birth of his first son.  Think about the things that bring you comfort when you are lonely or discouraged. Think about how you would use that bin to hold the objects you will use to occupy your idle time: art supplies, your Koran, a guitar, a chessboard, a cup-a-noodles you bought from the canteen, and textbooks for your electrical wiring class. A lot of guys keep a journal, or find inspiration to write about their lives; you might want to leave room for that. I know someone whose bin was filled with skeins of yarn and the in-process hats he knit for everyone he knew. 

Whoa, whoa, slow down. You can’t just include anything you want in the bin. You have to follow the rules outlined in Minnesota State Department of Corrections Policy Number 302.250: No more than 20 personal photographs. One address book. Religious items are permitted, but no more than five of them. 

**

The bins remind us of the weight of the state’s control over the individuals caught up in the system. It is important to remember that the box isn’t yours. It is subject to search. The objects in your box may be deemed contraband. The rules can change. A guard can decide that your things violate regulations.  

Property bins are uniform and serve as a tool to force round, complex individuals into square holes, so to speak. 

**

I know a guy who gave up his legal documents, decades into this sentence, to make room in his tote for more books. That act said something about his view of his future, and how he will now spend his time.  Or, I know someone who had to give up his art supplies to make room for the books he needed for law school.  

I have heard so many stories of property bins and the objects that fill them being lost while transferring from one facility to another, or when someone is released.  

Some people can send their property to someone on the outside to hold for them while they’re inside. But not everyone has a safe place to send things; the communities most impacted by incarceration are also marked by instability and insecurity. 

Sometimes, I think about what might have been in my father’s property bin, and the insecurity of my relatives during that time.  

Silence is a member of my family. There is lots of talking and laughter, playful arguing, wild storytelling, and clowning when we are together, but silence is there, too. There are things we don’t say, topics that don’t come up. My father’s time inside is one of those topics. I don’t know much about my father’s incarceration. It happened in the years he was far away from my childhood.  It was one of the places he was so far away during those years. Incarceration was just one element in our separation.  And then he didn’t want to talk about that time when we reconnected. And he’s gone now, lost to the silence of COVID in the fall of 2020. 

When I was in that waiting room, with the ministers and their bibles, I couldn’t help but think of what those bibles would displace in property bins. What sacrifices would need to be made? 

The property bin is a container for understanding the daily lives of the incarcerated. They hold personality and individuality in a place that tries to strip you of your personhood. These plastic vessels invite you to consider what is important to you and how your life might shrink to fit inside a box that is not under your control. Explore them, and you feel how your selection of personal items become signals of identity, evolution, memory, and hope. 


This essay was commissioned in conjunction with SEEN, on view at Weisman Art Museum February 8 - May 18, 2025. 

Erin Sharkey

A femme-presenting person with long hair in twists, wearing a rust-brown button down and denim jacket smiles into the camera
About the Artist

Erin Sharkey is a writer, arts and abolition organizer, cultural worker, and film producer based in Minneapolis. She is the cofounder, with Junauda Petrus, of an experimental arts collective called Free Black Dirt and is the producer of film projects including Sweetness of Wild, an episodic web film project, and Small Business Revolution (Hulu), which explored challenges and opportunities for Black-owned businesses in the Twin Cities in the summer of 2021. Sharkey has received fellowships and residencies from the Loft Mentor Series, VONA/Voices, the Givens Foundation, Coffee House Press, the Bell Museum of Natural History, and the Jerome Foundation. In 2021, Sharkey was awarded the Black Seed Fellowship from Black Visions and the Headwaters Foundation. She has an MFA in creative writing from Hamline University and teaches with the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop.

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