Where: Avenue 50 Gallery, Highland Park (131 North Avenue 50, Los Angeles, CA 90042)
When: April 8th- April 29th 2017
What: WordsUncaged is a creative, interactive, exhibit for incarcerated artists, writers, students and poets at California State Prison, Lancaster, to dialogue, and critically engage with YOU. We invite YOU to experience these voices, uncaged from the prison walls, and to imagine new ways of understanding our current system of mass incarceration in California, as well as alternatives to it—together.
This event celebrates the publication of the inaugural WordsUncaged Art & Literary Journal from Lancaster State Prison. It features original artwork, writing, poetry and sculptures, as well as portraits of many of the participants at Lancaster by photographer Scott Schafer. When you attend the exhibit, you will be given a unique, handwritten, “message in a bottle,” created personally by a prisoner at Lancaster, to keep. You will be invited to respond to your message through our “Cell Graffiti” installation, and to dialogue with your partners in the future through the WordsUncaged website and Instagram.
Throughout April, we will be offering a number of special events, lectures, and concerts to expand your awareness of prison and prisoners, and to explore our common humanity, creatively—together.
Our Community Partners: Anti-Recidivism Coalition (ARC), Healing Dialogue and Action, Paws For Life, The Inmate Family Council, Sister Inmate, Jail Guitar Doors, Avenue 50 Gallery, and Cal State LA’s College of Arts and Letters, Department of English, and Center for Engagement, Service, and the Public Good.
This project is supported by a grant from the California Humanities.