Wed, Feb 01
|Tompkins County Public Library
Behind the Wall: Art & Writing from Prison
Exhibit provides a glimpse into the lives, hearts, minds, and imaginations of 90 incarcerated people around the country.
Time & Location
Feb 01, 2023, 9:00 AM – Feb 28, 2023, 5:00 PM
Tompkins County Public Library, 101 E Green St, Ithaca, NY 14850, USA
About this event
Nearly 2 million Americans live in jails, prisons, and detention centers, all but invisible to the rest of the world. This exhibit provides a glimpse into some of their lives, hearts, minds, and imaginations.
Organized by Story House Ithaca, “Behind the Wall” is a traveling exhibition of drawings, paintings, letters, stories, and poems produced by people in prison. It includes 140 works by 90 incarcerated individuals from detention facilities in 22 states. There is a letter-writing station where visitors can send feedback directly to the participating artists.
The artworks and writings in “Behind the Wall” have been collected by Prisoner Express, a project of Durland Alternatives Library at Cornell, and curated by Newfield-based artist Treacy Ziegler. Both Story House Ithaca and Prisoner Express are projects of the Ithaca-based nonprofit Center for Transformative Action.
The exhibition will be on display in TCPL's Avenue of the Friends for the entire month of February. It will travel to Seymour Public Library in Auburn in March, Seneca Falls Library in April, Coburn Free Library in Owego in May, and Cortland Free Library in June.
“Behind the Wall” is presented in collaboration with the Finger Lakes Library System and the five participating libraries. It is supported by an action grant from Humanities NY.