INSIDE/OUTSIDE: PRISON NARRATIVES - Chaffey

Sandow BirkCamilo CruzAmy ElkinsAlyse EmdurAshley HuntLos Angeles Poverty DepartmentSpencer LowellJason MetcalfSheila PinkelRichard RossKristen S. Wilkins

with Steve Shoffner in collaboration with the students from Chaffey College’s Inmate Education Program at CIW with Angela Cardinale

Reception for the artistswith a performance by Karla Diaz:September 8 from 6-8pm

Panel discussion with the artists:November 10 at 5pm

Curated by Rebecca Trawick and Misty BurruelSeptember 8 – November 21, 2015This exhibition and related programs are generously supported in part by the President’s Equity Council, the Chaffey College Student Inmate Education Grant, Associated Students of Chaffey College, and the President’s Host Account.

INSIDE/OUTSIDE:PRISON NARRATIVES

Richard Ross, from Juvenile in Justice series, digital inkjet prints, 38 x 24 inches. Courtesy of the artist.

Inside Outside Takeaway_Layout 1 10/13/15 8:26 AM

Sandow BirkCamilo CruzKarla DiazAmy ElkinsAlyse EmdurAshley HuntLos Angeles Poverty DepartmentSpencer LowellJason MetcalfSheila PinkelRichard RossSteve ShoffnerKristen S. Wilkins

INSIDE/OUTSIDE:PRISON NARRATIVESCurated by Rebecca Trawick and Misty Burruel


Ashley Hunt, from The Corrections Documentary Project, ongoing, posters, 12 x 18 inches. Courtesy of the artist.


Inside/Outside: Prison Narratives, and its companion exhibition, DESEGREGATE,DISMANTLE ISOLATION bring together a group of artists that are compelled to investigatethemes related to our current state of mass incarceration in the U.S. with a focus on systemsof control through the use of solitary confinement and death row; the value of an educationor rehabilitation efforts within the corrections system; and to consider how artisticexpression has been incorporated into systems of rehabilitation.

An important component of this exhibition is the public programming, communityoutreach, faculty and student engagement, and opportunities for discourse. In addition tothe impressive list of artists and activists who are participating in our concurrent exhibitions,a consortium of faculty, college administrators, and experts in the fields of arts andcorrections, reentry, and rehabilitation join us in our programming to further contextualizethe works on view and our engagements with them. The exhibition promotes localpartnerships that foster institutional and public engagement in the prison system, whileinvestigating the multifaceted topics the artists explore. The experience, perspective, andopinions of this consortium will facilitate these kinds of dynamic engagements from boththe inside and the outside.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, more than 10,000 people are released fromprisons and jails in the United States weekly.1 That’s more than half a million peopleannually. More than 2.3 million people are incarcerated in America today - a rate that hasmore than quadrupled since 1980. Many have called it an epidemic. The result has beencountless numbers of important books, art exhibitions, films and documentaries, andrecently, popular culture has explored life behind bars with shows such as Orange is theNew Black and Wentworth. Many of these investigative works informed the vision ofInside/Outside. One seminal book written on the subject is Michelle Alexander’s The NewJim Crow. Alexander asks us to consider incarceration in the age of colorblindness. Sheposits that our contemporary criminal justice system in the U.S. functions as a system ofracial control2. Recently, a number of curators have explored our nation’s history andcontemporary manifestations of mass incarceration. Many of the exhibitions that influencedand informed us took place in Southern California. Notable recent exhibitions includePrison Obscura, curated by Pete Brook3; Voices of Incarceration, curated by Carolyn Peter4;and Geographies of Detention, curated by Catherine Gudis & Molly McGarry5. Aconsiderable number of artists have dedicated their practices to the investigation of thehistory and ramifications of incarceration on our communities either through their ownpractice, through rehabilitation programs where they facilitate student inmates’explorations, and/or by sharing the work of incarcerated artists with the world. As curatorswe owe a debt of gratitude to the breadth and depth of resources available on the broadtopic of ‘incarceration’.

INSIDE/OUTSIDE:PRISON NARRATIVESCurated by Rebecca Trawick and Misty Burruel


Recently, President Obama gave aspeech to the NAACP at their annualconvention in Philadelphia, pointedlycalling for greater reforms in thecriminal justice system . With theSeptember 2014 passage of SenateBill 1391, which requires theDepartment of Corrections andRehabilitation and the Office of theChancellor of the CaliforniaCommunity Colleges to enter into aninteragency agreement to expandaccess to community college coursesthat lead to degrees or certificatesthat result in enhanced workforceskills or transfer to a four-yearuniversity . Educational programswithin prisons are proving successfuland benefiting communities while

reducing local recidivism among the parolee population. Despite political and socialagendas, many educators, researchers, community agencies, and civic-minded leadersrecognize the value of education within prisons and the benefit of assisting parolees post-incarceration. There is an unparalleled bipartisan support for system-wide reforms in areasof drug decriminalization, solitary confinement, prison labor, privatization, death penalty,reentry services, and rehabilitation.

As employees in the educational system, we are intrigued and moved by the lives of ourstudents, the impact incarceration has had on many of their lives and the lives of theirfamilies, and the growing need for discourse on the topic among local agencies andmembers of educational institutions.Inside/Outside artists and activists bridge manyof these issues. Artists Sandow Birk, Ashley Hunt,and Spencer Lowell look at the architecture ofprison facilities within the California landscape.Camilo Cruz looks with an activists eye and fromwithin the system where he works as aCommunity Justice Initiative Director in theCriminal and Special Litigation Branch with theCity of Los Angeles. Sheila Pinkel considers theunequal system of prison labor, while RichardRoss studies the systems of control over childrenand young adults and the psychological impactsof such practices. Jason Metcalf considers food –usually a rather mundane topic in the day-to-day– but taken in the context as a death row inmate’sfinal meal request, these meals take on a newsignificance. Karla Diaz addresses the politics offood and incarceration in her opening nightperformance. Ashley Hunt’s infographics provideus with information on the Prison IndustrialComplex (PIC). Kristen S. Wilkins’ collaborative portraits of female inmates in Montana,juxtapose images of the women’s memories prior to incarceration that challenge our

Kristen S. Wilkins, Untitled #14 from the Supplication series,2009-2014, inkjet prints, 8 x 10 inches and 4 x 6 inches, andtext. Courtesy of the artist. “I always wanted to go to Pictograph Cave Park. I can give the photo to my kids andtell them I’ll take them there when I get out.”

Kristen S. Wilkins, Untitled #10 from the Supplication series, 2009-2014,inkjet prints, 8 x 10 inches and 4 x 6 inches, and text. Courtesy of the artist.Grand Ave. by Shiloh (Cemetery). Left side of water fountain. Has colorfulwreath with flowers. It is were my son is @. He is the best thing that happened to me in my life. He was my world.”


expectations of the “criminal”. Amy Elkins and AlyseEmdur both mine personal collections of letters andphotos that amplify the voices of the incarceratedand unsettling utopia. English Professor AngelaCardinale led a group of students in the InmateEducation Program at CIW to write a number ofessays over the course of 8 weeks, many thatconsider personal memories prior to incarceration.Steve Shoffner’ s compilation of these studentessays frames their shared condition in a compellingmanner. In the project space, The Counter NarrativeSociety (aka Mabel Negrete + Collaborators) delvesinto solitary confinement, the impact on theincarcerated, and the people who love them. Ascurators, we hope this collection of visual andwritten work will provoke questions about oursystem of justice and corrections and the peoplewho are subject to those systems.

This exhibition would not be possible without thecontributions of many. We would like to extend oursincere appreciation to all of the individuals who supported the realization ofInside/Outside. Michone and Michael Roth who generously loaned artworks from theirprivate collection to this show. Eleana Del Rio and Kimberly Clark, Koplin Del Rio Gallery,Los Angeles; Yancy Richardon and Francisco Cordero, Yancy Richardson Gallery, New York;Carolyn Peter, Laband Gallery, LMU, Los Angeles; and Caroline Docwra and JessieBowman, Houston Center for Photography, Texas, who have all provided loan assistanceand support in innumerable ways. At the California Institute for Women, special thanks to

Warden Kimberly Hughes, staffJohnathan Mumm, and thestudent contributors. Thestudents are part of the ChaffeyCollege Inmate EducationProgram at CIW who havebravely shared personal storiesof love, loss, and redemption,all under the amazing guidanceof Chaffey College EnglishProfessor Angela Cardinale. AtChaffey College, AssociateSuperintendent Dr. SherrieGuerrero; Interim Vice PresidentDr. Eric Bishop; School ofInstructional Support DeanLaura Hope; School of Visualand Performing Arts DeanJason Chevalier; and colleagues

Catherine Bacus, Angela Cardinale, Baron Brown, Michele Jenkins, Kelly Ford Kaminski,Theresa Rees, Laura M. Alvardado, Henry Rivas, Robert M. Rundquist, Diana Sanchez, WillMittendorf, and Bob Markovich, all who provided their expertise, energy, and whograciously participated and collaborated on programming. Further, our appreciation to theChaffey College Presidents Office, the Office of Instruction, the School of Visual &

Amy Elkins, 13/32 (Not the Man I Once Was), Archivalpigment print, 24 x 20 inches. Courtesy of the artistand Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York, NY.

Amy Elkins, Handmade Jump Rope (torn and braided bed sheet), archival pigmentprints, 14 x 11 inches each. Courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York, NY.


Performing Arts, EOPS, Presidents Equity Council, the Associated Students of ChaffeyCollege, the Wignall Museum Advisory Committee, and Ask Art: Advocates. At the WignallMuseum we want to thank Roman Stollenwerk and the gallery staff. Without them, theexhibition could not have been realized. We also want to acknowledge the generoussupport of the Chaffey College Inmate Education Grant. In the community, we would liketo thank the many people who have shared resources, know-how, and who have presentedtheir work including CSUSB Assistant Professor Annie Buckley, Professor of Education &Director of CSUSB’s Center for the Study of Correctional Education Carolyn Eggleston,Linda Lee Smith Barkman, Rogelio Robles, Michele Molina, and Santos Fuertos. Finally,we would like to thank the artists for their years of dedication to social justice, culturalchange, and a more compassionate humankind. We are grateful to have had theopportunity to work with each and every one of them.

Misty Burruel & Rebecca Trawick, CuratorsAugust 2015

1United States Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Prisoners and Prisoner Re-Entry introduction, 2015, web. April 2015.2Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow, Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, New York: The New Press, 2012. Print.3Brook, Pete. Prison Obscura, An exhibition of prison non-traditional imagery – surveillance, code, vernacular, workshop photography.Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery, Haverford, PA. (Jan 24th 2014 – Mar 7th, 2014); Scripps College, Claremont, CA (Sept 2nd-Oct 17th); AlfaArt Gallery & Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ (Oct 7th-Nov. 1st, 2014), Parsons New School of Design, New York, NY (Feb 5th-Apr 17th, 2015); University of Michigan (Sept 8th-25th, 2015); Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA (2016).4Peter, Carolyn. Voices of Incarceration, Laband Gallery, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA. January 25 - March 16, 2014.5Gudis, Catherine & McGarry, Molly. Geographies of Detention, From Guantáanamo to the Goden Gulag, California Museum ofPhotography, Riverside, CA, June 1 – September 7, 2013.6The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, Remarks by the President at the NAACP Conference, press release, July 14, 2015.Web. July 2015.7Justice Center, The Council of State Governments, CDCR and California Community Colleges Partner to Expand College Opportunities

to Inmates, March 17, 2015. Web. July 2015.

Amy Elkins, Four Years out of a Death Row Sentence (Forest), archival pigment print, 30 x 45 inches. Courtesy of the artist and YanceyRichardson Gallery, New York, NY.


rebeccaTRAWICK

Rebecca Trawick is the Director/Curator at the Wignall Museum ofContemporary Art, located on the campus of Chaffey College where shehas curated dozens of exhibitions and facilitated many more. Curatorialprojects include: Inside/Outside: Prison Narratives, which examines the USsystem of corrections; When I'm Sixty-Four, an exhibition featuringcontemporary artists who investigate concepts surrounding our perception,care, consideration, policy of our elderly population in our society; Food forThought: A Question of Consumption, which explore issues of food security,hunger, the social and personal impacts and our obsessions with of food;Separation Anxiety, that looks at motherhood and childhood in unexpectedways; Mammygraphs with LA artist Mark Steven Greenfield and theconcurrent Trick Baby featuring Minneapolis-based artist Ernest Arthur BryantIII; Inlandia, which looked at contemporary art currents in the Inland Empire;Radiant Spaces/ Private Domain: Southern California with Elena Maria Siffwhich presented work by artists with developmental disabilities; and TallStories, featuring artists and their mentors from the Art Center in Pasadena,CA. At Chaffey College she advises the annual Student Invitational exhibitionand course with studio faculty and museum staff. From 2012 -2015 Trawickserved as a Founding Board Member and Secretary for Arts Connection:The Arts Council of San Bernardino County. She's served as guest juror formultiple exhibitions in the region.

mistyBURRUEL

Misty Burruel is an Associate Professor of Art at Chaffey College where shehas taught for over a decade. She holds a Master of Fine Arts fromClaremont Graduate University and Bachelor of Arts from California StateUniversity, San Bernardino. She is a broadly trained studio artist whosepaintings, sculptures, installations and video works have been exhibited inmany Southern California and international group exhibitions. Misty is amember of the American Association of University Women and former Boardof Director for Arts Connection: The Arts Council of San Bernardino County.


Los Angeles artist SandowBirk is a well-traveledgraduate of the Otis/Parson'sArt Institute. Frequentlydeveloped as expansive,multi-media projects, hisworks have dealt withcontemporary life in itsentirety. With an emphasis onsocial issues, frequentthemes of his past workhave included inner cityviolence, graffiti, politicalissues, travel, war, andprisons, as well as surfing andskateboarding. He was arecipient of an NEAInternational Travel Grant toMexico City in 1995 to studymural painting, a GuggenheimFellowship in 1996, and aFulbright Fellowship forpainting to Rio de Janeiro for1997. In 1999 he was awardeda Getty Fellowship forpainting, followed by a Cityof Los Angeles (COLA)Fellowship in 2001. In 2007he was an artist in residenceat the Smithsonian Institute in

Sandow Birk, Wasco State Prison, Wasco, CA,2000, oil and acrylic on canvas, 24 x 42inches. Courtesy of the artist & Koplin Del RioGallery, Culver City, CA.

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Washington, DC, and at the Cité Internationale desArts in Paris in 2008. In 2014, Birk was named aUSA Knight Fellow. His most recent projectinvolves a consideration of the Qur’an as relevantto contemporary life in America.

Wasco State Prison, Wasco, CA is part of a seriesof landscape paintings and prints depicting all ofCalifornia's thirty-three state prisons, inspired bypaintings of the American West from the 19thcentury. The entire series was exhibited at theSanta Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum in 2001.A book has been published about the project:Incarcerated: Visions of California in the 21stCentury. A similar series was completed in 2002,depicting all fifteen of New York State's maximumsecurity correctional facilities and exhibited atDebs & Co. Gallery, NYC, in a show entitled,Maximum Security: Visions of New York in the21st Century.


Camilo Cruz grew up in a homeenvironment that was deeplycommitted to social justice. Hislate father, Richard Cruz, was aChicano civil rights attorney whodedicated his career to fightinginjustices experienced byminorities and other poor peoplethroughout California. Cruz’ssocial justice influences havetranslated to various restorativeand community justice projectshe has directed, formerly as theCommunity Relations Officer ofthe Los Angeles Superior Courtand now as the Director of theCommunity Justice Initiative withinthe Los Angeles City Attorney’sOffice.

Cruz received a Master of FineArts degree from California StateUniversity, Long Beach and aMasters in Public Policy fromClaremont Graduate University.Over the course of his 15-year artcareer, he has been grantedpermission to explore the intensity

Camilo Cruz, Untitled from the Theater of Souls series,56 x 45 inches. Courtesy of the artist.

Camilo Cruz, Untitled from the Portraits of Purposeseries, 56 x 45 inches. Courtesy of the artist.

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of the justice system through visual art. By exposing the administration ofjustice as a massive ‘theater’ of souls, all of whom perform on a stage ofinfinite and maddening bureaucracy, he investigates the subconscious andunspoken relationships between an institution and the humanity it is supposedto serve.

Cruz is interested in the unspoken challenges of survival that characterize ourbody the moment we navigate jails, courts, and the other ubiquitousinstitutions of the American criminal justice system. Cruz creates visual artthat examines the psychological truths of humans inside the justice system,many of which would go unnoticed if not captured within the boundaries of a“portrait.”

Cruz’s art has been shown nationally and internationally and has receivednumerous awards. Cruz recently exhibited portraits of inmates inside LosAngeles County Jail and has held numerous shows inside other justicefacilities including the Los Angeles Superior Court and the Judicial Council ofCalifornia. Camilo was recently asked to present his work at Pacific StandardTime: LA/LA, Place & Practice, which was held at theSan Diego Museum of Art. In partnership with the Getty Foundation, the GettyResearch Institute, the San Diego Museum of Art, and Scripps College, LA/LA,Place & Practice was a 2-day symposium highlighting socially engaged artsprojects within California and Mexico.

Camilo has also exhibited at the NationalMuseum of Mexican Art (Chicago, IL), the El PasoMuseum of Art (TX), the Museum of AfricanAmerican Art (Los Angeles), and the OrangeCounty Center for Contemporary Art, amongother galleries, universities, and on-linepublications. Cruz is a recipient of the CaliforniaCommunity Foundation’s 2013 Visual ArtsFellowship. In 2012 he was awarded the ArtisticInnovation Grant from the Center for CulturalInnovation.


Karla Diaz is an artist, writer,activist born and raised in LosAngeles who often usesperformance, writing andinstallation to explore socialpractices and cultural relationships.In particular she uses collaborativepedagogical methods to facilitateand create dialogue amongdiverse communities. She hasexhibited her work in local, nationaland international venues includingMOCA, LACMA, the Whitney, theInstituto Cervantez in Madrid, theICA Boston, and the SerpentineGallery in London. She is a formerco-director of exhibitions at theNew Chinatown Barbershopgallery in Los Angeles and afounding member of SlanguageStudio, an artist-run space inWilmington, California.

Karla Diaz, Prison Gourmet, 2013, image of perform-ance shot at Los Angeles County Museum of Art(LACMA). Courtesy of the artist.

Karla Diaz, Prison Gourmet, 2013, installation view atSan Jose Museum of Art. Courtesy of the artist

Karla Diaz, Prison Gourmet Recipe Book Cover, 2013.Courtesy of the artist

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Prison Gourmet is a multi-media installation of a cooking-demonstration tablewith letters, recipes and prisoners cooking ephemera, a recipe video, acookbook and performance that recreates prison recipes using commissaryfood items. Inmates from vending machines buy the limited list of food items.Although in some prisons like federal prison, inmates have access tomicrowaves, these recipes are made from limited kitchen tools that theymake on their own using whatever is available to them. Some of these foodrecipes suggest keeping ingredients in trash bags for days. Prisoners makeunconventional mixtures of ingredients to create their own unique flavors. Theintent of Prison Gourmet is to address and question the politics of food andincarceration. Among some of these, there are questions about freedom andfood, punishment and food justice, food and taste, prison food recipes aspsychological strategies for survival, communal meals and accessibility offood and health.


Amy Elkins is a photographercurrently based in the Greater LosAngeles area. She received herBFA in Photography from theSchool of Visual Arts in New YorkCity. Her portraits explore notionsof vulnerability, identity andtransitory states. Elkins’ earlierwork, Wallflower, looked into thenuances of gender identity andthe male psyche. In her morerecent work, Elkins investigatesadditional aspects of maleidentity, gender stereotypes andmodes of athleticism throughprojects Elegant Violence, lookingto young Ivy League rugbyathletes moments after their gameand Danseur, which looks toyoung male dancers inCopenhagen, Denmark (both balletand contemporary) moments afterintensive training.

In a semi-departure from hertraditional portraiture, Elkins hassimultaneously worked on longterm project, Black is the Day,

Amy Elkins, 13/32 (Not the Man I Once Was),

Amy Elkins, Prison Food Tray acquired fromEbay, 11 x 14

Amy Elkins, An Accumulation of Prison Correspondence,

amyELKINS


Black is the Night, which explores masculinity, vulnerability and identitythrough correspondence with men serving life and death row sentences insome of the most maximum security prisons in the US. The work hasrecently received the 2014 Aperture Portfolio Prize.

Elkins has been exhibited and published both nationally and internationally,including at Kunsthalle Wien in Vienna, Austria; the Center for CreativePhotography in Tucson, AZ; the Minneapolis Institute of Arts; North CarolinaMuseum of Art; Light Work Gallery in Syracuse, Aperture Gallery and YanceyRichardson Gallery in New York, De Soto Gallery in Los Angeles, the HoustonCenter for Photography in Houston, TX among others. Elkins has beenawarded with The Lightwork Artist-in-Residence in Syracuse, NY in 2011, theVilla Waldberta International Artist-in-Residence in Munich, Germany in 2012and most recently the Aperture Prize and the Latitude Artist-in-Residence in2014.


Alyse Emdur is a Los Angeles-based artist. Hersocially-engaged practiceunearths the invisible,marginalized, and under-represented and asks viewersto consider the relationshipsbetween these individuals andpublic institutions. Her recentwork presents peoplepresenting themselves withinthese systems. Throughcorrespondence, research,video-installation, andphotography-based projects,she engages with the personalto ultimately explore largersocial and political issues. Herwork has been featured in Artin America, Art PapersMagazine, the Atlantic, CabinetMagazine, Foam Magazine, theLos Angeles Review of Books,the New York Times, and VrijNederland Magazine. Her firstbook, Prison Landscapes waspublished by Four CornersBooks in January 2013.

Alyse Emdur, Anonymous Backdrop Painted inNew York State Correctional Facility, Otisville,2011, inkjet print, 42 x 52 inches. Courtesy ofthe artist.

Alyse Emdur, Backdrop Painted by Darrell VanMastrigt in Pennsylvania State Correctional In-stitution, Graterford, 2011, inkjet print, 42 x 52inches. Courtesy of the artist.

alyseEMDUR


This installation of Prison Landscapes includes several photographs taken ofprison visiting rooms, a collection of photographs of inmates of Californiaprisons representing themselves in front of visiting room backdrops, and aprison backdrop. Such backdrops, often painted by talented inmates, are usedwithin the prisons as portrait studios. As inmates and their visitors pose forphotos in front of these idealized landscapes they pretend, for a briefmoment, that they are someplace else. The photographs are given to thesevisitors as gifts to take home and remember the faces of their loved ones

while they are incarcerated.

Prison Landscapes explores this little known and largelyphysically inaccessible genre of painting and portraiture seenonly by inmates, visitors, and prison employees. Createdspecifically for escape and self-representation, the idealizedpaintings of tropical beaches, fantastical waterfalls, mountainvistas, and cityscapes invite sitters to perform fantasies offreedom. Portrait studios in visiting rooms are often prisoners’sole mode of visual self-representation but, ironically, they alsofunction as instruments of power for prisons because they arethe only place where images can be produced.

Prison Landscapes offers viewers a rare opportunity to seeAmerica’s incarcerated population, not through the usual lens ofcriminality, but through the eyes of inmates’ loved ones. Thecollection was inspired by a photograph I found of myself at

age five posing in front of a tropical beachscene while visiting my brother in prison.Since discovering this first portrait in myown family album in 2005, I have invitedhundreds of prisoners to send me (initiallyusing the alias Lee Lana) photographs forinclusion in this collection.

Fall’s Fall was painted by Darrell Van Mastrigtin his cell in the State Correctional Institutionat Graterford, a maximum-security prison inPennsylvania. The unusual task of mailingFall's Fall out of Graterford was madepossible with the support of the Mural ArtsProgram in Philadelphia.


Ashley Hunt is interested in howimages, objects, maps, writingand performance can engagesocial ideas and actions, includingthose of social movements, dailylife, the exercise of political power,and the disciplinary boundariesthat separate our art worlds fromthe larger worlds in which they sit.

Hunt’s works include theperformance and book, Notes onthe Emptying of a City, adismantled film that recounts histime in New Orleans afterHurricane Katrina; Communograph,a multi-platform project withProject Row Houses in Houston;his ongoing collaboration withTaisha Paggett, On Movement,Thought and Politics; thecollaborative 9 Scripts from aNation at War, produced fordocumenta 12 with Andrea Geyer,Sharon Hayes, Katya Sander and

785 men, Massachusettes Correctional InstitutionCedar Junction, Walpole, Massachusettes, from the se-ries Degrees of Visibility, 2015, archival ink jet printand text, ash frame and matte, 18 x 24 inches. Cour-tesy of the artist.

2,152 men, with a median age of 38.4 years old, AtticaCorrectional Facility, Attica, New York, from the seriesDegrees of Visibility, 2014, archival ink jet print andtext, ash frame and matte, 18 x 36 inches. Courtesy ofthe artist.

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David Thorne; and The Corrections DocumentaryProject, a body of work addressing the aestheticsand politics of prison expansion in the U.S., includingnine video works, photography and mappings thatspan sixteen years of research, production andorganizing.

His current project is a large body of landscapephotographs from throughout the fifty U.S. statesand territories, documenting spaces in which prisonssit from publicly available points of view — lookingat how prisons are presented and camouflagedwithin our everyday perception, form part of anaesthetics of mass incarceration.

Recent exhibitions and performances include CueArt Foundation, Threewalls Gallery in Chicago, TheKitchen in New York, the 2012 Made in L.A. Biennialof the Hammer Museum, the Museum of Modern Art,the Tate Modern, and Woodbourne StateCorrectional Institute in upstate New York. Recentwriting has appeared in X-TRA Contemporary ArtQuarterly (2014), Native Strategies issue 4 (2014),Shifter Magazine #20 (2013). Hunt is co-director ofthe Program in Photography and Media at CalArts.


Los Angeles Poverty Department(LAPD) makes artistic work tochange the narrative about peopleliving in poverty. LAPD aims tocreate a community ofcompassion, and inspire the nextgeneration of artists. Believingchange is about exchange andthat art is about surprise, LAPDhas throughout its 30-yearhistory confused the categoriesand confounded expectations.

Los Angeles Poverty Department, 2009, image ofState of Incarceration performance at the BOX Gallery.Photograph courtesy of Annemaike Mertens.

Los Angeles Poverty Department, 2014, image ofState of Incarceration performance at the Queens Mu-seum. Photograph courtesy of Queens Museum.

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State of Incarceration (SOI, 2010) combines theater, installation and publiceducation and explores the consequence of incarceration on people, familiesand communities. Many of the theater piece’s creators / performers have beenincarcerated. In SOI, these artists articulate the mental and physical challengesof incarceration and the resources needed to endure and recover from it. SOIis directed by John Malpede and Henriëtte Brouwers and written / improvisedby the LAPD performers. The piece’s trajectory extends from entering prisonthrough incarceration, to release and the challenges of re-integration afterprison. The piece is not character based, but is a litany of experiencessuffered under similar conditions. In that sense SOI performs the ritual ofincarceration. The performance is a communal quest to understand,communicate and recover from the experience: by making peace withyourself and others who have made you suffer. The ultimate goal of theproject is to create a moment of exchange and reflection on how they andwe, the people of California, as a state can recover from living in a state ofincarceration.


The works of Spencer Lowell pairscientific pragmatism with anunbridled creative energy. Anative of Los Angeles, thesaturated color stories of sunshinedrenched days, turquoise oceansand infinite cloudless skies areetched into Lowell’s aesthetic.

Lowell’s artistic practice mirrorsthe scientific method. Alwayskeeping one eye open to theurbanity around him, Lowell’sunflinching camera takes inventoryof that which goes unnoticed andpoints out that beauty thriveswhen it’s least expected.

Spencer Lowell graduated fromArt Center College of Design inPasadena, CA in 2007 with a BFAin photography and imaging. Hisclients include NationalGeographic, Time and Wired toname a few.

Spencer Lowell, La Palma Prison, Arizona, 2010, chromogenic print on Kodak Endura paper, 50 x 33.3inches. Courtesy of the artist.

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Jason Metcalf’s recent exhibitionsinclude those at AND NOW, Dallas;Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills;Martos Gallery, New York; JOAN,Los Angeles; Center for Land UseInterpretation, Wendover; UtahMuseum of Contemporary Art, SaltLake City; Florian Christopher,Zurich; Salon Fur Kunstbuch,Vienna; and Thank You ForComing, Los Angeles. He attendedthe Mountain School of Arts,Brigham Young University, andthe School of the Museum of FineArts, Boston.

Metcalf’s practice is primarilyengaged with belief systems,spiritual formalism, magic, and theanthropology of folklore. He oftenre-enacts superstitious rituals orlegends as artwork, through thefolkloric methodology of pseudo-ostension. An action is designatedas the pseudo-ostension when anindividual knowingly recreates orre-enacts a particular legend ormyth, and such singularitieseffectively become real throughtheir physicalization.

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Jason Metcalf, Cheeseburger, French Fries, Iced Tea(Dwight Adanandus), 2013, archival pigment print, 16 x 24 inches. Courtesy of the artist.


In conjunction with his August 2013 residency at the Los Angeles foodand art space, Thank You For Coming, Metcalf served the last meals ofdeath row prisoners (often referred to as a special meal). The menu wasselected from an assembled archive of last meal requests of US inmates.The request itself became the recipe for any given item, and theprescription was strictly followed. Responses from guests varied fromreverence to refusal, although dialogue followed in nearly all cases.


Sheila Pinkel is an emeritaprofessor of art from PomonaCollege and an artist who hasexhibited nationally andinternationally. All of her work isabout making visible the invisiblein nature and culture. She is also aninternational editor of Leonardo,the publication devoted to theintersection of art, science andtechnology.

Site Unseen: Prison IndustrialAuthority (PIA) is one piece from alarger body of work entitled SiteUnseen: Incarceration done from1999 to the present time. Thispiece was inspired by a PrisonIndustrial Authority (PIA) cataloguethat included photographs ofmany of the things made byprisoners in California prisons.Pinkel began researching theprison industry in California andlearned that the California StateUniversity system, the CaliforniaPolytechnic University systemand all state and local governmentoffices in California must, by law,purchase all of their officefurniture from PIA and was struck

Site Unseen: Prison Industrial Authority, 2013, inkjetprints, 5.6 x 8.6 feet. Courtesy of the artist.

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by the irony that the U.S. flag and the California State flag areproduced by prisoners. This piece includes demographic informationabout the people who are incarcerated in California prisons, reflectingthat poor and non-white people comprise the majority of peopleincarcerated and that the population of incarcerated women isgrowing. Pinkel decided to do this piece because the information itcontains is normally not visible.


Richard Ross is a photographer,researcher and professor of artbased in Santa Barbara, California.Ross has been the recipient ofgrants from the NationalEndowment for the Arts, theAnnie E. Casey Foundation,MacArthur and the Center forCultural Innovation. Ross wasawarded both Fulbright andGuggenheim Fellowships. Hismost recent work, the — In Justiceseries, turns a lens on theplacement and treatment ofAmerican juveniles housed by lawin facilities that treat, confine,punish, assist and, occasionally,harm them. Two books andtraveling exhibitions of the workcontinue to see great successwhile Ross collaborates withjuvenile justice stakeholders,using the images as a catalyst forchange.

Richard Ross, from Juvenile in Justice series,digital inkjet prints, 38 x 24 inches. Courtesyof the artist.

richardROSS


Kristen S. Wilkins examinesthe relationships betweenplace/land and people, whichhas included ideas ofnostalgia, environmentalimpact, and the enigmatic.Wilkins received her MFAfrom California StateUniversity, Fullerton andearned her BA with a doublemajor in Art and Biologyfrom the University ofCalifornia, Santa Cruz. Wilkinshas exhibited throughout theUnited States, and in England,Australia, and Canada. Shecurrently lives and teaches inSouthern Indiana with herhusband and their herd ofdogs and cats.

Kristen S. Wilkins, Untitled #10 from the Supplication series, 2009-2014, inkjet prints, 8 x 10 inches and 4 x 6 inches, and text.Courtesy of the artist.Grand Ave. by Shiloh (Cemetery). Left side ofwater fountain. Has colorful wreath with flow-ers. It is were my son is @. He is the bestthing that happened to me in my life. He wasmy world.”

Kristen S. Wilkins, Untitled #14 from the Supplication series, 2009-2014, inkjet prints, 8 x 10 inches and 4 x 6 inches, and text.Courtesy of the artist.“I always wanted to go to Pictograph CavePark. I can give the photo to my kids and tellthem I’ll take them there when I get out.”

kristen s.WILKINS


Wilkins’s artistic processes explore the construct ofmemory and nostalgia associated with place, and howthis association retains its importance over one’s life. Inthe series, Supplication, she worked with incarceratedwomen to create images of places they missed, pairedwith their portraits. This pairing creates a moreempathetic vision of the modern felon. She used alarge-format camera and instant film (printed as digitalenlargements). This approach isolates the prisoners in avery shallow depth-of-field, revealing a tendernessnot found in the mugshots we are familiar with. Thisisolation and detail adds an aura of mystery, poetry,and sometimes tragedy to the countenances of theinmates.

Mugshots are meant to document a transgressor, butact to criminalize individuals and strip them of identityand sympathy; the frequency of these images cancause other members of the same community to feelunsafe and untrusting of strangers. By going into theprison and making sympathetic portraits, Wilkens isinterested in seeing and sharing the human side of thetransgressor. She also wants to give back to them forshowing her this honesty by creating images of placesthey missed, which she returned to them.

Each piece in this series includes text either spoken orwritten by the woman pictured. Some are heart-breakingly honest, their requests linked to familytragedy or their crimes. Others reveal a sense oflevity: despite their situation, they are trying to moveon with their lives.


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThis exhibition and related programs are generously supported in part by the President’s Equity Council, the Chaffey College Student Inmate Education Grant,Associated Students of Chaffey College, and the President’s Host Account.

CHAFFEY COLLEGE GOVERNING BOARDGary L. George, PresidentPaul J. Gomez, Vice PresidentKatie Roberts, ClerkLee C. McDougal, Immediate Past PresidentKathleen Brugger, Member

SUPERTINTENDENT/PRESIDENTHenry Shannon, Ph.D.

ASSOCIATE SUPERINTENDENT, INSTRUCTION AND INSTITUTIONAL EFFECTIVENESSSherrie Guerrero, Ed.D.

DEAN, VISUAL & PERFORMING ARTSJason Chevalier, Ph.D.

DIRECTOR/CURATOR, WIGNALL MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ARTRebecca Trawick

ASSISTANT CURATORRoman Stollenwerk

PRINTINGChaffey College Print Shop

Institutional support for the Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art is provided byChaffey College, the School of Visual & Performing Arts and the President’sOffice.

MISSION AND COMMITMENT Chaffey College improves lives within the diverse communities it serves throughequal access to quality occupational, transfer, general education, and foundationprograms in a learning-centered environment where student success is highlyvalued, supported, and assessed.


WIGNALL MUSEUM OFCONTEMPORARY ARTMISSION STATEMENTThe Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art presents exhibitions, education, andcommunity programming to our diverse audiences in order to foster criticalthinking and to encourage innovation and investigation through contemporaryart. The Museum advances the mission of Chaffey College by contributing to theintellectual and cultural life of the college community and offering equal accessto quality programming for the diverse communities of the Inland Empire.

ABOUT USThe Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art serves as a learning lab forinvestigating and contemplating contemporary visual culture, featuring temporaryexhibitions of innovative contemporary art throughout the year. Exhibitions andprogramming are organized with our students in mind in order to augment theiracademic experience by complementing the college’s curricula and broadeningthe understanding of contemporary art. Our exhibitions allow visitors to see andexperience a variety of contemporary artistic practices that examine timely andrelevant topics.

The Wignall is an important resource for students, faculty, and staff that can actas a catalyst for a student’s own creative investigations or enhance classroomexperience with direct engagement with art. For many visitors, exhibitions at theWignall Museum of Contemporary Art may provide an exciting first encounterwith the visual arts. The Museum strives to transform the art museum experienceinto something unexpected, extraordinary and engaging. We invite you to visitus and to explore!

A NOTE ABOUT OUR EXHIBITIONS & PROGRAMMINGThe Wignall Museum is an important part of the educational programs andmission of Chaffey College. Some of the artwork in our exhibitions andpublications may contain mature content. The views and opinions expressed inthis publication and exhibition are those of the authors and artists and do notreflect the opinions or policy of Chaffey College.

www.chaffey.edu/wignallFacebook • Twitter • Pinterest • Tumblr @wignallmuseum


Counter Narrative Societyis an artistic researchactivist unit with themission to initiate andcreate a research lababout bio-power,urbanism, culture,alternative education,and technology, toexplore these areas ofinterest through parody,live-art, civicengagement, pedagogy,multimedia, design, andextra-disciplinary artpractice. Their recentprojects have focusedaround the idea oftransforming The Weight ICarry with Me. In theirperformances,multimedia installations,tactical objects, andmultifaceted projects,CNS uses a practice thatthey call paradoxicalremedies to playfullycounteract undesirableand traumatic conditions

counter narrativeSOCIETY

Mabel Negrete (Counter Narrative Society), installation view of When the Invisible PunishingMachine is Everywhere: The Weight I Carrywith Me, 2011, MIT, Cambridge, MA. Courtesy of Artist.


by creating emotional, sometimes difficult, anomalous situations.Currently they go back and forth between Philadelphia, PA and SanFrancisco, CA. Most recently they are working on a series ofmultifaceted creative projects that strive to reinvent alternative

education, create new opportunitiesfor youth and adults affected by massincarceration and inequity, and bringabout collective healing.

Mabel Negrete is a performanceartist, designer, activist, researcherand educator. She was born in Chileand in the 90s made the USA herhome (in the Bay area of SanFrancisco). In 2007, she founded theCounter Narrative Society (CNS), aresearch unit that works to initiatedialogues about bio-power, urbanism,culture, and technology. Shegraduated from MIT with a Masters inart, culture, and technology. Negreteis a recipient of several recognitionsincluding the Leeway Foundation’sArt & Change Grant 2003; MITPresidential Award 2009-2010 andMIT Architecture Department

Fellowship 2009-2011, Zellerbach Family Foundation & W.A.Gerbode Foundation 2006, and Osher Memorial Merit Scholarship atSan Francisco Art Institute 2003-2006. Her work has been presentedin a variety of public spaces and cultural institutions includingBoston City Hall, Boston, MA; Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology, Cambridge, MA; Art of this Gallery, Minneapolis, MI;Occidental College, LA, CA; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, SanFrancisco, CA; Taller Puertorriqueño, Philadelphia, PA; De YoungMuseum, San Francisco, CA; Intersection for the Arts, San Francisco,CA; Galleria de la Raza, San Francisco, CA; Primo Piano Living Gallery,Lecce, Italy; New College of California, San Francisco, CA; SanFrancisco World Affairs Counsel, San Francisco, CA; and University ofSan Francisco, San Francisco, CA.


DESEGREGATE,DISMANTLE ISOLATIONa project by the Counter Narrative Society (CNS) (AKA Mabel Negrete and Collaborators)

Featuring The Weight I Carry with Me: SENSIBLE HOUSING UNIT (SHU)


In the Project Space:

DESEGREGATE,DISMANTLE ISOLATIONa project by the Counter Narrative Society (CNS) (AKA Mabel Negrete and Collaborators)

September 8 – November 21, 2015with an opening reception on September 8 from 6-8pm

This exhibition and related programs are generously supported in part by the President’s Equity Council, the Chaffey College Student Inmate Education Grant, Associated Students of Chaffey College, and the President’s Host Account.

Mabel Negrete (Counter Narrative Society), documentation image of Rehearsal for Future Actions, 2011, Boston City Hall, Boston, MA.Courtesy of Artist.


INSIDE/OUTSIDE: PRISON NARRATIVES - Chaffey

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