Prison Nation at the Cleveland Public Library

Join Aperture, the Cleveland Public Library, and the Ohio Transformation Fund for the opening reception of the exhibition, Prison Nation, on view at the Cleveland Public Library’s Martin Luther Kind Jr. branch. Nicole R. Fleetwood, an expert on art’s relation to incarceration, will address the unique role photography plays in creating a visual record of a national crisis.

The evening also includes a prison art and reform panel discussion which will begin at 6:00 p.m. Panelists include: Fred Ward, Executive Director of the Khnemu Foundation Lighthouse Center; Tyra Patterson, Community Outreach Strategy Specialist of Ohio Justice and Policy Center; Bishara Addison, Senior Manager of Policy Strategy Initiatives at Towards Employment; and Dean Gillispie, artist and member of the Ohio innocence project. Moderated by Shakyra Diaz, Managing Director of Crime Survivors for Safety and Justice at the Alliance for Safety and Justice.

Most prisons and jails across the United States do not allow prisoners to have access to cameras. At a moment when an estimated 2.2 million people are incarcerated in the US, 3.8 million people are on probation, and 870,000 former prisoners are on parole, this exhibition explores how photographs visualize a reality that disproportionately affects people of color. This exhibition addresses the unique role photography plays in creating a visual record of this national crisis, despite the increasing difficulty of gaining access inside prisons.