A visual protest against injustice
October 2024 – January 2025
Undoing the Carceral State is an exhibition organized by currently incarcerated artist and scholar, Joseph Dole. As a recipient of an IL Humanities grant, Dole commissioned 14 other incarcerated artists to make new works explaining the contexts and conditions of incarcerations. The artists developed stunning responses that use popular graphics, metaphor and humor to examine the economics of incarceration, how new laws impact their lives, toxic conditions of prisons and the ways that families endure the effects of incarceration.
While the art works depict the deep pain and harm incarceration creates, the act of taking up these issues, making them visible and educating the public about prisons and policing, from inside a prison cell, represents the resistance to being warehoused and disappeared.
Curated by: Joe Dole
Exhibition Artists: Joseph Dole, Juan Luna, William Jones, Darrell Fair, Christian Noel, Don Juan Rios, Ernesto Valle, Kenneth Key, Christopher Everett, Luis Trevino, Robert Curry
Gallery Essay by: Ben Austen see here
Gallery Guide by Joe Dole, Seth Perry and Isabell Padilla Bonelli see here
