HOW ARE WE FREE exhibit guide

HOW ARE WE FREE

How Are We Free explores the nature of freedom and confinement through creative collaboration between people who have been sentenced to die in prison and visual artists outside the prison walls.

Visual economies and regimes of power have been massively employed by the state and the media in order to criminalize people. This exhibit interrupts those regimes and instead invites viewers to investigate what actually creates conditions for safety, healing, justice, transformation, and liberation.

The participating artists are: Makeba Rainey (Philadelphia), Noelle Lorraine Williams (New Jersey), Matice Moore (Baltimore), Alma Sheppard-Matsuo (Philadelphia), Gb Kim (Brooklyn), Robin Markle (Philadelphia), and Kate DeCiccio (Washington DC). Their collaborators on the inside are Clinton “Nkechi” Walker, Terri Harper, Felix “Phill” Rosado, Avis Lee, David “Dawud” Lee, Marie “Mechie” Scott, and Charles Boyd.

How Are We Free was produced by LifeLines: Voices Against the Other Death Penalty and will be travelling across the state of Pennsylvania throughout 2018. Go to lifelinesproject.org/exhibit for updates on where we’ll be travelling and when.

Image by Gb Kim

Felix Rosado is cofounder and co-coordinator of Let's Circle Up, a restorative justice project based at Graterford

State Prison. Originally from Reading, PA, he has been fighting a death by incarceration sentence since 1995. He also co-coordinates the Alternatives to Violence Project and is a member of the Inside-Out Graterford Think Tank. In 2016, he earned his Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies degree from Villanova University. He is an advisor to Decarcerate PA, as well as to Eastern State Penitentiary's Prisons Today Exhibit and Returning Citizens Tour Guide Program. As a member of Right 2 Redemption (a founding organization of the Coalition to Abolish Death by Incarceration) and Lifelines, he seeks to end the practice of caging humans until death.

“I sink Close my eyes Open them back up Rise Stand tall Kick the stopper Water and suds run down the drain Forming a funnel of years and tears Escaping the law’s long limbs The clanging keys The walkie talkie static The slamming steel gates I look up Give thanks In through my nostrils Out through my mouth This is today The first of the rest My life my life my life my life In the sunshine.”

-Phill

PHILL: I learned that art is a highly effective shelter, hygiene, water… we could make art KATE: To me freedom exists when we are

for the next 10 years about how these basics are used to remind [incarcerated people] of their powerlessness and lack of agency.

able to achieve our full selves accessing our full humanity, creativity & capacity to thrive in relationships that are both loving and challenging. A part of this includes defending this freedom for others & PHILL: Freedom to me is the ability to make discovering fulfillment by experiencing the KATE: I feel like you’ve captured something choices about where my body will be on a liberation of others. given day and who I will share space with. that’s a key feature in the prison This definition comes directly out of experience: that the most human basic For more written and audio interviews with Felix conversations between me and Kate.

There needs become reformatted into a series of “Phill” Rosado see lifelines-project.org/phillare also freedoms of the non-physical protocols that insult your humanity every rosado variety that prison walls can’t confine. step of the way, right? Food, clothing, Kate DeCiccio is an artist, educator and cultural organizer with a background in mental health. Her work focuses on

using portraiture for creating counter-narratives to address issues including police brutality, interrogating whiteness, the prison industrial complex, and gentrification. Before working full time as an artist, Kate taught at San Quentin Prison, Leadership High School, and Capitol Hill Arts workshop, and worked as a mental health and substance abuse counselor in a residential program designed to support successful community reintegration after an acute psychiatric break. Kate's approach to storytelling and portraiture is informed by her experiences working in social services and studying the importance of personal narratives. Learn more at http://kdeciccio.wixsite.com/k8deciccio

PHILL AND KATE

way to tell a story about unspeakable issues, such as how a man who’s been locked up for 22 years answers questions about his inability to leave a visiting room to his 7-year-old nephew.

Terri Harper is a writer, a member of the LifeLines project, the Coalition to Abolish Death By Incarceration, and the PA prison society, and is the current president of the Muncy Inmates Organization. She loves to cook, write, read, and laugh. As the seasons continue to change in her life and the lives around her, she is actively doing all she can to change her actions and their outcomes, so the world around her and at large can be better in some way.

Originally from Philadelphia, she’s been serving a Death By Incarceration sentence for the last 27 years.

What the public MUST understand, or at least try on for size, is the mental turmoil of aging “inside” with little coming by way of so-called rehabilitation, programming, or societal/judicial support of one’s ability to grow and be refocused, renewed, and have negative behaviors permanently replaced. The public has to actively, not just verbally, support change for change to be viable and lasting.

-Terri we’ve lived through. We are free when we put in the effort to be honest, compassionate, and of service to those (or just ONE) who interesting tools one can use to convey their vision to others. I also picked up on the possibility that everyone has a creative side need our help. We are free when we breathe. As for what freedom means to me… Freedom means I have an opportunity and an that can help them clearly allow others into their “personal obligation to DO BETTER and BE BETTER. “BETTER” is thinking with space.”... I wanted to make clear that freedom looks like change, forward/long reaching goals to reach out to people who are emotionally, physically, and socially. walking in the shoes I’ve discarded and lay an informational foundation to get them thinking differently about living, NOELLE: Things that I do every day with other collaborators like sending pictures by text or getting an immediate response was a friendship, fun, love, and a future. learning curve. While I believe I am a quick adapter, I found that I was challenged by small adaptations which gave me something to NOELLE: Freedom to me is autonomy. It is the ability to make consider and made my communication less frequent. I believe the decisions for oneself and to direct how one lives and interacts with others in this world. It is to be acknowledged as “fully hardest thing to convey was my initial idea of wanting to human” – which for African American women in the United States historicize her story. It made me step back and look at my goals. has been both a legal, social and political struggle against Are my goals to truly work with someone or impose my ideas dehumanization processes. around the work I do? For me what was important as I came to learn more about the process was truthfully engaging her story.

TERRI: We are free the moment we accept full responsibility for

For more written and audio interviews with Terri Harper see lifelinesproject.org/terri-harper.

every choice we’ve made and every outcome or consequence Noelle Lorraine Williams is a conceptual artist living and working in Newark, NJ. She strives to build engaged communities and utilize

public dialogue, relying on sculpture, multimedia practices, events and performance. She received her Bachelor of Arts Degree in Social and Historical Inquiry from The New School for Social Research, and is currently a graduate student at Rutgers University-Newark studying American Studies with a focus on Public Humanities. She has exhibited in New York and New Jersey, including the Newark Museum, Jersey City Museum, Paul Robeson Gallery at Rutgers University, Rush Arts Gallery, Caribbean Cultural Center, Skylight Gallery, and Newark Arts Council and Victory Hall, among others. She has also served as curator and coordinator on various projects, including her ongoing conceptual project “The Black Women’s Fairy Tale Museum.” She also continues to engage her multidisciplinary art practice as a path to social awareness and spiritual liberation. Learn more at http://www.noellelorrainewilliams.com/

TERRI AND NOELLE

TERRI: From this process, I learned that there are some very

Charles Boyd has been fighting a Death By Incarceration (DBI) sentence for the past thirty-five years. He is co-founder of the Let's Circle Up (LCU)

Restorative Justice project and the internal coordinator for the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP), which focuses on community building and conflict resolution. He has been a member of the Graterford Inside-Out Think Tank for fifteen years. He volunteers as a Hospice Caretaker and works in the Alcohol and Other Drugs department as a Certified Peer Supporter. Charles has a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies from Villanova University. He is an environmentalist who loves music, art, and creating safe spaces where people can discover their personal and collective sense of agency. He is committed to ending the inhumane practices of DBI sentences and mass incarceration in general.

CHARLES: Instead of painting a flowery image

MAKEBA AND CHARLES

for you, it was important that my partner, "Keebs" and I rendered a disturbing image. If it frustrates, angers, shocks, annoys, agitates, or confuses, it has served in part its purpose.

MAKEBA: I am in awe of how anyone in prison

can effectively be activists; how they can be so committed to social justice by any means. I think that we can all learn a lot about resilience, commitment, and perseverance when there are few to no tools available. I've learned that the decision to be committed to social justice is a choice to be a part of humanity; a choice to remain connected; a choice to live.

CHARLES: Freedom is being able to love

without the fear of the repercussions. I just love you and fight for you because I realize that my existence is intertwined with yours and vice-versa. Freedom is to have a stake in the issues that affect you. No means no and if I don't want your unwarranted advances or your corporations drilling for oil on my property then stay the f**k off. If it's mine, then it's sacred.

Freedom means me as a human being having more rights than a corporation. When the people cry out for justice, freedom and equality and it does not land on a deaf ear... that's freedom. When the people cry out that's too much... whether it be misogyny, discrimination, racism, mass incarceration, xenophobia, etc. and it stops, then that's freedom.

MAKEBA: I equate Black Liberation with

If a picture could really convey a thousand words, I would want those words to say: “I am Somebody! I am you … you are me, our commonality lies within our core humanity. I am somebody … I am still here.”

-Charles

freedom. I'm constantly thinking about Black Liberation and what that means. It is important for me visualize and articulate that before I can even try to work towards it. If, as Nina Simone says, "freedom is no fear", then Black Liberation means the ability to be courageous...the courage to be...to show up fully as your self.

For more written and audio interviews with Charles Boyd see lifelines-project.org/charles-boyd.

Makeba “KEEBS” Rainey is a Harlem native inspired by her community and fellow emerging visual and performance artists. She

is the founder of Black Capital Coalition (BCC), which promotes both visual and performance artists from Harlem through creative collaborations between artists, businesses, and cultural institutions. BCC directs attention to young Harlem artists by teaming up with other young creatives; videographers, musicians, performing artists, and writers; to merge audiences and increase their collective fan-base. She currently lives in Philadelphia. Learn more at http://www.justcallmekeebs.com/

WHY WE MUST END DEATH BY INCARCERATION

The United States incarcerates more people per capita than any country in the world. And Pennsylvania condemns people to die in prison in higher numbers than almost any other state. Over 5000 people in Pennsylvania are serving Death By Incarceration (DBI) – more commonly known as Life Without Parole.

Even as some policy makers are finally beginning to question the racialized, punitive nature of many U.S. policing and prison policies (thanks to the tireless efforts of activists and movements inside and outside of prison), this critique is rarely extended to DBI sentences. Even in states with declining prison populations, the number of people serving life sentences is still going up, and the number of crimes for which you can receive this sentence is also rising. Today more prisoners are serving life terms than ever before.

DBI sentencing is both expensive and ineffective even as understood on its own terms. The yearly cost per person serving DBI mounts ever higher as people spend the entirety of their elderly years in confinement, beset by the many health problems that confinement produces.

More importantly, it is socially and morally wrong, representing a gross human rights violation that targets members of poor and marginalized communities and condemns them to a status of permanent exile.

their lives does not make us any safer.

Incarceration destabilizes families and communities, perpetuates cycles of trauma, and exacerbates rather than alleviating harm and violence. It is past time for us to envision a new reality. Many people in prison – including many of the people featured here – have devoted their lives to developing models of restorative and transformative justice, mentoring young people, and laying the foundations for a world where dialogue, healing, and reparations are foundational to how we address harm.

In Pennsylvania and across the nation, the movement to abolish Death By Incarceration – and broader efforts to confront the systemic injustice of the carceral state – is growing. Collaborative projects and collaborative organizing are weaving together strong movements on both sides of the prison walls. Here in Pennsylvania, we finally have bills in both the state House and Senate that would effectively end Life Without Parole sentencing in the state. But we need a massive organizing effort to make this legislation a reality.

In the words of LifeLines member David Lee, “I want people to know that we need all of their creative talents, innovation, cognitive abilities, passion for justice and freedom, and determination to bring forth structural changes to emerge at this hour DBI sentencing reflects the systemic in our struggle. We must understand that racism that’s deeply embedded in the our struggle is a continuation of what was United States and must be confronted as started centuries ago when people of part of any larger struggle for racial justice. various walks of life came together to In Pennsylvania, almost 75% of people challenge chattel enslavement, the Black serving DBI sentences are Black or Latinx. Codes, Jim Crow segregation, The carceral system (a term which includes discrimination on other levels, etc. The not just prisons, but the entire police, struggle for justice and human rights has court, and criminal legal structure) has historical roots and our current struggle to become a key instrument of social challenge and abolish DBI is in line with this organization/control and a primary means same tradition.” by which the U.S. state manages both “deviant behavior” and perceived threats At its heart, the struggle to end Death By to the social order. In it we find vividly Incarceration is about more than just a reflected all the ongoing patriarchal, single issue, and more than just a policy homophobic and white supremacist change. If we want forms of justice that are investments of our national politics. Our centered on healing and self movements must address not just laws determination, we must ask ourselves, do and policies, but the oppressive and we want a system that routinely judges our divisive structures that allow such policies family, friends, and neighbors forever to exist. irredeemable? Do we want a society that deals death to the most vulnerable? Or do Locking people in cages for the rest of we want to live in a world where the

BY THE NUMBERS • More than 53,000 people are serving DBI sentences in the U.S. – over 5,400 in Pennsylvania alone.

Pennsylvania has the second highest number of people serving DBI sentences in the country.

• Outside the U.S., Australia, the Netherlands, and the UK have more people serving DBI than any other jurisdictions. The total number of people serving DBI in these three countries combined is less than 150.

155 out of 193 countries in the world ban DBI sentences.

• Between 1992 and 2008 alone, the DBI population in the United States increased 230%.

• Between 2003 and 2015, violent crime decreased by 21% in Pennsylvania, while the number of people serving DBI sentences increased by 40%.

• 11% of Pennsylvania’s residents are Black, but 65% of people sentenced to DBI are Black.

• 207 women are sentenced to DBI in Pennsylvania.

• Black Philadelphia residents are sentenced to DBI at a higher ratio than the overall incarceration rates of all but 23 countries and territories in the world.

These facts were researched and produced by the Abolitionist Law Center in Pittsburgh.

inherent dignity of all is respected and upheld?

These questions are not rhetorical, they are life and death. And we’re fighting for life – not the kind lived inside a cage, but life with space for growth, transformation, redemption, and justice.

TRANSFORMATIO HEALING LIBERATION

“When I think of freedom, prisons are no longer in the equation. Freedom is a peacefully express ourselves as human beings and not be persecuted/discri because of cultural differences or religious beliefs. … Without a quality educ housing, and employment, how can human beings enjoy their lives? Without communities and the police who operate within them as if they are a military free? Without the collective sharing of power and resources, how are we free

IT’S TIME TO END DEATH BY INCA

Produced by the LifeLines Project as part of the How Are We Free exhibit (2018). Image by

ON

about being able to iminated against cation, health care, control over our y force, how are we e?”

– David “Dawud” Lee

ARCERATION IN PENNSYLVANIA

y Matice Moore. Learn more at http://LifeLines-Project.org

David “Dawud” Lee is a cofounder of One Hood United, and a founding member of the Coalition to Abolish Death By

Incarceration. He is a prolific writer, mentor, and friend to many on both sides of the prison walls. He is also part of the LifeLines Project, and serves on Decarcerate PA's Inside Advisory Board. Originally from Philadelphia, he has been serving a death by incarceration sentence for the last 30 years for a crime he did not commit. Over 25 of those years have been dedicated to educating himself and others, and utilizing his education in an effort to fight for his release from captivity, and toward creating a truly liberated social arrangement here in the United States.

DAWUD: It was important that the project include both of our

personalities because this project is a process of sharing the inner workings of passionate human beings. I think that people will see the sort of mutual respect that we have for each other, and how we allowed each other to have the space to be exactly who we are, without any type of pushing or pulling… It was more than just an art collaboration; it was the connection of two emergent minds in search of liberation.

MATICE: This process is still teaching me, so it’s hard at this point

DAWUD: What does freedom mean to me? Everything! When I was

DAWUD AND MATICE

to come up with a final assessment of the learning. I do believe it is my role and the function of art to give shape and tangibility to what does not currently exist otherwise.

a young person running the streets of Philadelphia, I did not take the time to truly examine concepts like freedom, so I took a lot of things for granted. I also understand that freedom has always been just an idea, because I have never truly tasted freedom.

When we create a social arrangement where you are allowed to be exactly who you are, without persecution, then we can start the conversation about freedom. When we create a society that is absent any sort of subjection and financial exploitation, I will begin the thought process that will lead Imagine living in a place with absolutely no privacy, a place where even your most precious me to the understanding of what freedom items can be violated because of some contrived security reason. Imagine your mother truly means!

MATICE: To me, true freedom is the ability

passing away and not being able to go to the funeral because of those same security concerns. Imagine someone you love in need of your support, but you cannot be there, no matter how much they need you. How would you feel? Imagine what it is like to long for a loving touch for over two decades. Imagine existing in a world full of people who dislike, may even hate you because you represent something they refuse to comprehend - like the difference in cultural disposition, political views, etc. Imagine that these people who dislike you control vital resources like toilet paper, mail, food, when the heat will come or go off, and other services. Imagine being condemned to a Death By Incarceration sentence for a crime you did not commit and having to listen to those in control of your immediate environment suggest that you’re getting what you deserve. – Dawud

to know oneself and to align our behavior in accordance with what creates more life on the planet. It feels like doing the work we feel called to do, and loving what we have to offer the world not because we have to earn a paycheck to survive, but because finishing something we enjoyed doing for ourselves and others affirms our greater belonging. Free people value the opportunity to nurture the wholeness of each and every other individual because they look forward to receiving the gifts healthy functional people bestow upon communities. Free individuals initiate and seek out spaces where we welcome evolution beyond old beliefs, structures and institutions, and channel our talents into both ending what no longer serves our collective evolution, and innovating new structures that support our healing and growth.

For more written and audio interviews with David “Dawud” Lee see lifelines-project.org/dawud-lee.

Matice Moore is a printmaker and painter from Arizona. After graduating from the University of Arizona in 2004 with a BA in Creative Writing

and Studio Art, Matice worked in the non-profit and education sectors for ten years before returning to art making in 2014. Matice's current work focuses on rendering Black figures against abstract backgrounds as an exploration of how the body is made and re-made through interaction with the world around us. As a linocut printmaker, Matice carves affirmative images of emerging realities that attempt to push against oppressive definitions of identity while affirming the wholeness of those systematically targeted by dominant U.S. culture. Matice’s art grows from relational politics and intends to orient toward a world beyond the oppressive and fracturing dynamics of capitalism, racism, and the gender binary. Learn more at https://matice-moore.squarespace.com/

Marie “Mechie” Scott is an organizer, writer, and lifelong advocate for children of incarcerated parents. While she’s been

incarcerated she has written legislation, started support groups, and participated in numerous projects and organizations.

She was born in Harlem, New York on the fourth of July, and is the mother of two children. She is a writer and editor, as well as an aspiring pianist. She is featured in Howard Zehr’s book Doing Life: Reflections of Men and Women Serving Life Sentences . She has been serving a death by incarceration sentence for the last 45 years.

MECHIE AND ROBIN

MECHIE: The thing that keeps me fighting is instinct.

MECHIE: I have imagined at least 500 different ways my release from prison would look like if God blesses me with my freedom Imprisonment is not our natural habitat. This is not my home. one day. Those imaginations Every creature wants to be Imagine the planets. Here’s Earth and here’s Mars. I’m on Mars in my are the only hopes I have free to go wherever they prison garb, waiting to be transferred back to Earth after 44+ years left to hold onto, since all want. Humans are no served on Mars. I’m awaiting transportation back to a planet, a life the doors seem to be shut different. I don’t think about that is so new to me, it’s like I’m a martian from Mars coming to Earth for women serving life, the the majority who will die in for the first time. other death penalty. here, whether that includes me or not. I focus on what I’m excited to be on this trip coming to this planet that I used to live ROBIN: There were so many keeps me from becoming on. Everything’s so unfamiliar. Sort of like the old librarian in times I wished that I could complacent in prison for the Shawshank Redemption who hung himself after seeing automobiles videochat with her to show rest of my life! for the first time in his life moving on a street he’s trying to cross her what I was working on, a and everyone’s blowing their horns scaring him to death. There are choice I was making in one ROBIN: When I started so many things that in the past 44+ years have come and gone in the of the pieces and wanted working on the portrait, I world outside our world in prison. I never touched a microwave during her feedback on. didn't have to work hard, it 44 years of being in SCI Muncy and now coming to SCI Cambridge The most important thing to just sort of came to me.

Springs. Imagine how much rice I burnt up! – Mechie me was that Mechie feel When I wrote Mechie to like she was an equal describe it, she wrote collaborator as much back, "You know how as possible within some people can read the confines of our minds but not on situation. I've seen purpose? Well it's like other "social justice" that's what you're art projects that doing to me!!! I don't claim to be have to think of collaborative anything different between an impacted than what you're person or community doing already and an outside artist because you are but are not true already doing what I collaborations and would have thought ultimately elevate to do!!!! How do you the power of the do that??!?!??? "I told artist and not the her, "I'm a witch." Lol. community. It is really This has continued important to me that throughout our the final products of process and it's this collaboration definitely the most represent Mechie moving aspect part of and her ideas and the project for me. elevate her power, and that I am more of a conduit for that vision For more written and audio interviews with Marie “Mechie” Scott see to be materialized on paper. lifelines-project.org/mechie-scott.

Robin Markle is an artist, organizer and revolutionary witch practicing their crafts in West Philadelphia. Robin's practices are

inspired by their queer community and the resiliency and strength that comes from people working together against oppressive forces. They often collaborate with local organizations, such as Decarcerate PA and the Coalition to Abolish Death By Incarceration, on art pieces to aid in political work. Collaborations have included a postcard series with antiincarceration messages, a prison piñata, protest banners, and silk-screened patches. Robin has been a coordinator of the Philly Childcare Collective for nine years and regularly coordinates kid's programming at their favorite event, the Allied Media Conference. When they're not in a meeting, Robin can be found cooking up a scheme, a spell or a meal, and selling queer altar candles at FlamingIdols.com

Clinton “Nkechi” Walker is a an avid reader, a writer and a poet. His poetry has been published in Apiary Magazine. He’s

also a self-proclaimed singer, though many who have heard his vocals would strongly disagree. Though he’s had few opportunities for academic achievement, he takes pride in the fact that he’s been able to develop a strong mental strength and character, despite the horrors, hardships, and assaults of the prison system. Originally from Philadelphia, he’s been serving a Juvenile Life Without Parole sentence for the last 18 years.

ALMA: Nkechi is a beautiful writer and his words gave me a lot to work

with. Art of all kinds, to me, is about communicating some idea, emotion or experience between people and Nkechi and I communicated well.

With this project, it felt important for my work to visually communicate what he was saying in written and spoken word. People listen in different ways, what words won't say to one person a picture might, and I felt this collaboration did a good job of creating unified works.

NKECHI: Concerning the collaboration process that me and Alma

NKECHI AND ALMA

developed, it was kind of like an easy game of Connect 4 where we were playing against a blank canvas. Alma would send me a sketch of her overall thought of my words, symbolically dropping a chip in the slot. I would drop my chip, worth an idea. Alma would drop another chip, then another. Then, CONNECT 4!!! The piece was done.

ALMA: To me, freedom means choice. Choice is the most powerful thing

we can have – we are born with certain choices available to us, and our choices can lead to further choice or restrictions. There are many institutional structures put in place to limit our choices for us. Often as we grow up, we struggle to see which choices are always ours, which we feel ok negotiating on and to what end, which choices have been taken away that must be taken back.

NKECHI: Freedom to me is the ability of one to make and carry out

choice without manipulation, persuasion, influence or force from any outside entity. As it relates to criminal justice, freedom would look like officials, such as judges, being absent of lobbyists, politicians and distorted public influence that contradicts righteousness and rightness.

Freedom would look like District Attorneys devoid of pressure to use deviant tactics, like stockpiling charges for maximum sentencing, in order to reach job performance quotas. Freedom in the league of criminal justice would allow Public Defenders I began to see prison thru the eyes of the usually white, patriotic, blue collar corrections to perform adequately, without force of officer who is starting his shift. As I enter the facility, thru these eyes, I refuse to see a settlements/plea deals due to restriction of community of individuals who may be grandfathers, fathers, sons, brothers or husbands. I resources and overwhelming caseloads.

Freedom would look like a public that is able to refuse to see men who are no different then I am if it wasn't for the difference in dress code. resolve legal matters without being subject to I refuse to see human beings that are not the worst mistake they made in their life. Thru inherent bias, prejudices or preferred these eyes, as I head to my assigned post, I see a place that can only be a battlefield full of treatment. All in all, freedom is a space where adversaries. human beings are allowed to experience an It would be fair to observe that my “us against them” observation when looking thru the lens unlimited amount of empathy for one another, of the everyday corrections officers can also speak to my personal adversarial attitude and able to act on that empathy without against those same correctional officers. It is, to me, the essential problem in our prison bother.

system, in our society, in our country, and in the world. It would be more promising to understand, listen to, and cherish the wisdom of empathy versus sitting on a throne of self righteousness.” -Nkechi

For more written and audio interviews with Clinton “Nkechi” Walker see lifelinesproject.org/nkechi-walker.

Alma Sheppard-Matsuo is a queer hāfu artist, visual storyteller, and educator from New York, currently based in Philadelphia. They

received their BFA in traditional animation from the School of Visual Arts (NYC) in 2010. After graduation, they worked in the streets with radical puppetry groups like The People's Puppets, Bread & Puppet and Great Small Works on issues ranging from migrant rights to the debt crisis to environmental justice. This work developed their emphasis on visual narrative as a necessary and useful tool of advocacy in social justice. Alma’s illustration work has been featured in numerous publications, as well as in galleries and public spaces across the country. After teaching visual art in NYC for years, they have relocated to Philadelphia where they are a middle school ELA teacher and continue making art. Learn more at: https://bunnymermaid.tumblr.com/

Avis Lee is a certified Braille translator, currently working as a Peer Assistant in the Therapeutic Community program. She

grandmothers godmothers, wives, and neighbors...I see society. A society of women who was stagnated at a standstill I was in reality still live within a society of men, women, and children moving forward, evolving, and growing. who are separated from them with barbed-wire fencing, time, and space. I see lives that were Gb: There is difficulty in the sense that how can I thrown away; lives that were stolen, lives that represent/translate/inscribe/reinscribe another were traded, and lives that were sacrificed for human being without actually being near her - not others. being able to hear her voice or see the mannerisms of her personality and humanity. I Gb: Freedom is sometimes political, like some think the most important thing I wanted to impart type of currency of privilege that mutates based on the work was a sense of her whimsy and the on the type and manner of privilege(s). Freedom saturation in her visions of not only the future but is sometimes about "normative" doing like the her "here and now." casualness of a conversation around "I like the grocery store down the block better than the one AVIS: When I look in the faces around me, many of on the corner." Freedom is sometimes emotional which I've watched for 37 years...I am awed by the and is shaped or held by fear--that freedom might beauty that the passing of time has gently be to live free of fear. Freedom is sometimes an carved into them; a crease here, a fold there, gray, awesome chaos like light or the seeming anarchy silver and white hair, baby-blue rings encircling of particle physics (though of course we could deep-brown-black pupils which continue to say these are "governed" by glimmer through their opaqueness. mathematics)...freedom is deeply about the I see poets, artists, musicians, crafts workers, ability to employ the mind and all that it contains mothers, daughters, sisters, nieces, aunts, someway and anyway into the physical world.

AVIS: I'm surprised that when I thought my life

For more written and audio interviews with Avis Lee see lifelines-project.org/avis-lee.

Dear GB, All I can tell you is what I see here on a daily basis...when I look out my window early in the morning I see spectacular sunrises - hot pink, lavender, gold, teal, orange, turquoise which is rudely interrupted by barbedrazor wire fencing. After I eat breakfast I go walking the yard for exercise and I sometimes see salmon-colored salamanders while looking at the dew on the blades of grass and seeing how many wildflowers I can identify. It rains a lot here and there is usually a single- or doublerainbow afterwards that sometimes arcs over the military base across the way.

When the huge military trucks go by with the gunner atop I wave. In the hopes, dreams, talents, and sometimes even failures of the women who surround me ... I see myself. I see the metamorphosis that takes place in each of us as we make peace with our past and begin to open our hearts to healing and forgiveness for others and ourselves. We look to our futures with hope and anticipation for lives better than we've ever had before.

We come to realize that we made some mistakes in the past BUT we are not mistakes and although we are imprisoned we don't have to allow our past mistakes to define the sum of our whole selves.

-Avis

Gb Kim is an artist and interdisciplinary scholar, working with scientists in hospitals and institutions throughout the

U.S. and internationally. While art has been the primary pursuit of her scholarship, science, medicine, and technology have always informed her practice. She is currently interested in science fiction particularly as it functions as a space of creative exchange between science politics and the imaginative act. She is invested in art as a proposition and agentive vehicle that draws our attention to the politics of our technology, examines the social effects of science, and both creates and destroys these imagined social barriers. She currently works at the organizations, iBiology and the Ligo Project. Learn more at http://www.gbkim.com/

AVIS AND GB

is a member of Let’s Get Free: Women and Trans Prisoner Defense Committee, and the coauthor of the play Chin to the Sky. She also serves on Decarcerate PA’s Advisory Board. Avis was born in Altoona, PA, grew up in Pittsburgh, and has been serving a Death By Incarceration sentence for the last 38 years. She enjoys genealogy, knitting, crocheting, and gardening.

TAKE ACTION! Call your state legislators and ask them to end Life Without Parole

Sample script: Hi my name is (your name), and I live in (your city or

town) and am a constituent. I’m calling to ask (rep. [name] or sen. [name]) to support (HB135 or SB942). This bill would allow those who have been sentenced to life in prison the opportunity to seek We are working to pass PA House Bill 135 and PA Senate Bill 942 , which would make people serving Death By Incarceration sentences parole. I believe everyone deserves a second chance, and that this bill is good for Pennsylvania. I’m asking the [Rep./Sen.] to coeligible for parole after 15 years. The bills were introduced by Rep. sponsor the bill, and commit to voting YES when it comes up for a Jason Dawkins (D-Phila), and Sen. Sharif Street (D-Phila), and both are currently in the Judiciary Committees. We are asking everyone vote. to call their legislators and ask them to cosponsor the bill.

Want to share what happened? Send us an email and let us know: How to call? You can find contact information for your legislators at: lifelinesphilly@gmail.com sentencing in Pennsylvania.

http://bit.ly/palegislators

THANKS FOR CALLING!

LOOKING FOR MORE WAYS TO GET INVOLVED IN THE MOVEMENT TO END DEATH BY INCARCERATION? Consider doing the following:

Host the How Are We Free exhibit!

Do you know a place that you’d like to see this exhibit travel within the state of Pennsylvania? Reach out to us! We’re taking this exhibit across the state to community spaces, churches, art galleries, universities, and more. We want this conversation and the effort to end Death By Incarceration to continue to expand, and we’re looking for places where the show can be up for a month and can include some educational events/programming alongside. Reach out to us with your ideas at lifelinesphilly@gmail.com.

Join the Coalition to Abolish Death

By Incarceration!

The Coalition to Abolish Death By Incarceration (CADBI) is working hard to end Death By Incarceration in Pennsylvania.

CADBI is an all volunteer effort and is always looking for new people to get involved.

If you live in Philadelphia, you can join us at our monthly meetings. CADBI currently meets on the third Wednesday of every month at Project Home (1515 Fairmount Ave in Philadelphia) from 6:30-8:30 PM.

If you are currently incarcerated, get involved by writing to CADBI c/o Decarcerate PA PO Box 40764 Philadelphia PA 19107.

Wherever you are, you can get connected with CADBI by email at CADBIphilly@gmail.com or by phone at 267606-0324.

Check out http://decarceratepa.info/CADBI for more info.

The LifeLines Project LifeLines: Voices Against the Other Death Penalty is a multimedia project intended to transform the nature of public discussions and understanding of death by incarceration (DBI) — more commonly known as life without parole (LWOP) — in Pennsylvania. The project was developed to support a statewide campaign to end the practice of sentencing people to die in prison. Successfully defeating these sentences will require as much a profound cultural shift in the public’s orientation toward incarceration and punishment as it will legislative changes. This means challenging the sensationalized stereotypes of who is behind bars and why with the actual stories, faces, analysis, and visions of women and men sentenced to die in prison. The LifeLines Project conducts written and audio interviews with people serving DBI, which we use to create digital resources, printed literature, and visual and sound installations as tools to engage in education and dialogue with people across the state.

Outside the prison walls, LifeLines consists primarily of Layne Mullett and Emily Abendroth, who both live in Philadelphia and are founding members of Decarcerate PA and the Coalition to Abolition Death By Incarceration.

Thank you!

This project is a labor of love, and there are so many people without whom this exhibit never would have happened. First, huge thanks to the artists and LifeLines members whose collaborations are featured on these pages. We are so inspired to see this work come into the world, and so appreciate your time and labor in making this happen. Huge thanks also to Dave Onion for graphic design support (including this publication!), Karen Kirchhoff for photography, Chenda Cope for managing the creation of the display, the Institute of Contemporary Art for hosting our launch event, the Sparkplug Foundation for providing the initial funding, and to the many other people who have volunteered their time, energy, and expertise to make this project a reality.