Walls Turned Sideways was founded in January 2024 as a dedicated space for art and community engagement centered on the experiences of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals and their families. It emerged from over a decade of organizing and teaching with the Prison + Neighborhood Arts/Education Project (PNAP)*, which taught classes at Stateville prison and hosted exhibitions in Chicago neighborhoods until the prison closed in 2013. Our work is shaped by extensive research conducted in 2021 by Pablo Mendoza and Sarah Ross, who interviewed incarcerated individuals, their families, and allied organizations about the possibility of an abolitionist art space in Chicago. This research highlighted a need for such a space whereby communities impacted by incarceration connect through art, share knowledge, and support returning residents. Walls Turned Sideways now fills that gap by providing exhibitions, workshops, and resources that use art as a means of advocacy, healing, and community-building.
To see more information about our research, who we interviewed and more, please see our most recent report.
Between 2021 and 2024 an advisory board of artists and formerly incarcerated people helped shape our work. A deep gratitude and thank you this team for their trust and work with us: Eric Blackmon, Kevin Blumenberg, Monica Cosby, Andres Hernandez, Aaron Hughes, Raphel Jackson, Tess Landon, Damon Locks, Joseph Mapp, Muneca Mulero, and Anna Martine Whitehead.
Walls Turned Sideways is cofounded by Pablo Medoza, a formerly incarcerated advocate and Sarah Ross, an educator and artist.
Land Acknowledgement —
We operate with the understanding that on the traditional homelands of the Council of Three Fires, the Odawa, the Ojibwe, and the Potawatomi bands which was the meeting place for other tribes including the Miami, Ho-Chunk, Sac and Fox, Kickapoo, Peoria, the Sioux, as well as other nations unknown or undocumented in colonial history. In addition to the violent removal of indigenous people in the area the neighborhood of Garfield Park has been challenged by more recent state violence. In 1955 the Eisenhower Expressway construction displaced whole neighborhoods. After the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1968, urban uprisings again reshaped the neighborhood. Much of Madison Street was burned and many residents and businesses were again displaced. In 1969, Fred Hampton, leader of the local Black Panther Party, was murdered by police just blocks from this location. A memorial to his legacy is present in the memorial across the street from here. The neighborhood was again reshaped, in the early 2000s, public housing was torn down and residents from the neighborhood were again displaced. We recognize that we work in a neighborhood where wealth is found in the strength and richness of its people and history. We work with the acknowledgement that this neighborhood is an ecology that is shaped by our ancestors as well as current and future neighbors.