UM Dearborn exhibit brings people together to discuss criminal justice reform
The Inside Voices Exhibit opens May 6 at the Andy Arts building in Detroit.
Tore Price and Kyle Daniel-Bey during a "Theater of the Oppressed" workshop with Olatz Gorrotxategi.
An art and poetry exhibit that hopes to inspire conversations about criminal justice reform in the U.S. opens this weekend in Dearborn.
The Inside Voices Exhibit is a culmination of the University of Michigan Dearborn’s Inside Out Prison Exchange Program, which brought students and those incarcerated together into prisons in a classroom setting.
UM-Dearborn sociology professor Paul Draus says that the program later transitioned to public Art & Agency workshops to continue the conversations on campus after the pandemic.
“Part of the class, it’s sort of a workshop in building community. Everybody is in a circle and everybody is sort of on the same plane, Draus explains. “The structure is very much that way our artists, our practitioners are coming in. And they are introducing a practice or an idea but then they’re bringing the people into it.”
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Tamir Bell, one of the co-facilitators for the Art & Agency workshop, says it’s important to center the voices of those who are most impacted.
“It’s very important to give those who are justice impacted some vehicle or some tools to express themselves — to deal with the trauma they went through and also to connect back and give back to the community,” Bell says.
He shares the exhibit will feature work from incarcerated people.
“Some of the artwork and pieces and some of the poems, again, just like some of the topics — people might not necessarily agree with them. But it’s not that we want everyone to agree with each other. We want everyone to have good healthy honest dialogue and to have this type of human connection with each other,” says Bell.
The exhibit is a snapshot of the year-long bi-monthly workshops through Art & Agency. The exhibit and event takes place Saturday, May 6 at the Andy Arts building in Detroit from 4-8 p.m.
Organizers hope to take this program on the road in the near future.
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