November 3, 2009
Arts & (Incarcerated) Bodies
Arts on Earth Presentation: Arts & (Incarcerated) Bodies
7:00 PM, Stamps Auditorium, Walgreen Drama Center,1226 Murfin Avenue
Bodies are incarcerated everywhere, in many ways – in jails, illness, war zones, dangerous neighborhoods, dangerous families – with emotional, psychological, intellectual, physical, and spiritual effects on the individuals incarcerated. What role do the arts play when bodies – people – are incarcerated?
Can engagement with the arts help undo some of the effects of incarceration? Can the arts help the unincarcerated (or less incarcerated) view the more incarcerated differently, help us think more clearly or compassionately about types of incarceration, and effects? Can the arts bring home how each member of any society is implicated in the incarceration of other citizens?How might incarceration affect the art-making of the incarcerated – both process and product?
Join us for an unforgettable evening of performance, exhibition, and conversation about these and other questions with three consummate artist/activists who have worked with the variously incarcerated for decades.
Buzz Alexander – U-M Professor of English, is Founder and Member of the Prison Creative Arts Project, which has engaged thousands of Michigan prisoners in writing and the plastic arts since 1990. Buzz and Janie Paul curate the Annual Exhibition of Art by Michigan Prisoners.
Jon Deak – Associate Principal Bassist with the New York Philharmonic since 1973 and a prominent composer of contemporary chamber pieces, Jon Deak also commits himself to helping students in New York’s most troubled schools express themselves through musical composition.
Janie Paul – U-M Professor of Art & Design and Social Work, Janie Paul is a member of the Prison Creative Arts Project and a co-curator of PCAP’s annual Exhibitions of Art by Michigan Prisoners. Professor Paul has dedicated much of her life to bringing art-making opportunities to adolescents and adults in Michigan’s prisons, and to underserved students in the Detroit Public Schools.
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