A national network and resource for those creating art in and around the criminal legal system.
Saturday, June 26. 9:00 PM EST. A round of Zoom applause lit up the screen as we celebrated Jail Guitar Doors' Go Getta Chris and Blaccson's encore performance for their session: Songs and Beats, an original performance piece created by system-impacted youth. Despite being virtual, there was an electric feeling in the air that zipped …
Continue reading Reflections on Art for a New Future: JAC National Convening 2021
JAC recently spoke with Zoe Boekbinder (they/them), folk singer and songwriter who planted the seed for the Prison Music Project. Nomadic at heart and a creator at their core, Zoe was born on a farm into a family of four children. While music wasn't very present in their upbringing, Zoe recalls some of their first …
by Melissa Wang and Isa Berliner, JAC Interns The creative process enables us to see good in the world and people around us. Brian Hindson’s story and his collaborative work with other incarcerated artists exemplify this exceptional power of art. His creative story begins, surprisingly, twenty-two years after leaving art school. Although Brian attended art …
by Melissa Wang, JAC Intern “I started reading poetry in a cell in solitary confinement,” writes Reginald Dwayne Betts to the Justice Arts Coalition. Now an award-winning poet and Ph.D candidate in Law at Yale Law School, Betts began his poetic practice in prison. As a sixteen-year-old, Betts was sentenced to nine years in prison …
We recently talked with Anderson Smith, our newest addition to the Teaching Artist Spotlight series, and one of the newest members of the Justice Arts Coalition Board of Directors. Dr. Smith has a strong commitment to social justice, equity, and inclusion while supporting ways to question and change inequitable societal norms. Working with adults in and out …