On Friday Jan. 23, during a week where we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.’s life and legacy, Ann Marie Kirk, co-founder of Art For Justice, came to Elizabethtown College to present a gallery of pictures from her collection called Prisoner Art for Social Justice. The artwork she brought with her were pieces of work done by people in the Graterford Prison, a maximum security state institution. The prisoners are either sentenced to life in prison or on Death Row, but some of the artists are wrongfully convicted of their crime. The pictures the artists create are their sole voice to the people. The gallery is located on the walls of the second floor hallway in Brossman Commons leading to Learning Services.
The goal of the Art For Justice Foundation is to educate people and get them talking about the social justice system in America today. “Art is a magnet for communication. I hope to bring people together to make a difference,” Kirk said. “Art is a window to another conversation.”
This is the foundation’s 74th time in a public venue, after starting in North Philadelphia, Pa in 1997. The other co-founder, Charles Zafir Lawson, is a prisoner at Graterford Prison who was sentenced to life without parole for a murder. Lawson was the first artist who Kirk reached out to and it was the beginning of a great program. Lawson, although the first artist’s work she bought, is not the only one she has in her collection. Kirk currently has 16 to 18 artists in her collection.
The mission of the program is to support and exhibit prisoner art to promote public dialogue on ways to prevent crime, reduce levels of incarceration and to find effective, humane ways to improve the social justice system. Another goal the program has is to lower the crime rate for juveniles. Kirk and her co-workers also reach out to Juveniles who often get into trouble. The juveniles see the sadness in the work and what the pictures demonstrate. Each picture has a different story from a different person. Jean-Paul Benowitz, the director of student transition programs and assistant director of academic advising, explained, “[Each person’s] voice is being heard through art.” It is interesting to see each picture in the gallery and see all the different stories each artist drew. The art is about viewing the person’s life, in which Kirk said, “Art depicts the deepest truth.”
Kirk does not work with the Graterford Prison, nor is she a volunteer. Kirk believes today’s prison system is flawed. The prisoners are not given time in their day for art class, meaning all the work they create is done on their own time in their cells.
There is a struggle in the United States. We, as a country, lead the world in percentage of incarcerations. To lower that percentage, Kirk and Lawson have started their Juvenile Program to keep the juveniles’ futures bright. The program uses art to promote the happiness to these kids. Creating art and looking at art is thought to help the children and adolescents. A correlation exists between prisons that allow time for art and having fewer problems than those who do not, but in today’s world, we are taking art out of schools and not letting the kids have time for art.
Kirk came from a background in social justice, where she saw all of these problems firsthand. Kirk believes that solitary confinement is torture for an inmate. After living through the justice program, she wanted to change what was going on within them. Kirk believes that this problem that is going on is a social one, and the only way we can fix the problem is by people getting involved and doing what they can to help.
The gallery is also in the Free Library of Philadelphia until Feb. 15. For more information of Art for Justice and the stories of the artists, go to www.artforjustice.org.
