Overture Center for the Arts Summer Exhibitions Portray Impact of Incarceration
Free Galleries, Film Screenings and Events Presented in Partnership with Justified Art!, GSAFE, and Local Artists
Overture Center’s Summery Galleries will feature exhibitions and events regarding prison and incarceration and the impact on the local community. Overture’s Galleries and all related programming (listed below) are free, open and accessible to the public.
Exhibition: Captured by Amber Sowards | Gallery II | TUE, JUN 13 – SUN, SEP 3
Captured is a series of photographs taken of youth inside the Dane County Juvenile Detention Center in Madison, Wisconsin. The series hopes to expose the general community to what life is like for incarcerated youth in Dane County—including LGBTQ+ youth of color—while at the same time creating a visual narrative that documents and humanizes what racial disparity looks like in present-day Dane County. The photographs were taken by artist Amber Sowards in collaboration with Ali Muldrow of GSAFE’s New Narrative Project. This exhibition and free events are made possible by GSAFE, Justified Art!, and the Overture Center for the Arts.
“This exhibition asks audiences to confront the realities of incarcerated children,” said Ali Muldrow, GSAFE’s Racial Justice Youth Organizer. “We have to examine what it says about us as a community when the majority of young people we expose to incarceration are youth of color—who are themselves disproportionately disabled, LGBTQ, and living in poverty.”
Screening of 13TH | Promenade Hall | WED, JUL 19, 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Justified Art! and GSAFE present a free, public screening of the Oscar-nominated documentary 13TH, directed by Ava DuVernay, which examines the prison system in the United States and how it reveals the nation’s history of racial inequality. Centered on race in the United States criminal justice system, the film is titled after the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which outlawed slavery, unless as punishment for a crime. DuVernay’s documentary argues that slavery is being effectively perpetuated through mass incarceration.
Panel Discussion on Youth Incarceration | Promenade Hall | WED, JUL 26, 6:30 PM – 8 PM
This panel discussion features representatives from local government, schools, non-profit organizations, and the community. Dane County simultaneously carries a reputation as the best place to raise children, and the worst place to raise children depending upon skin color.
Featured panelists include:
Matthew Braunginn | Co-founder, Young Gifted and Black Coalition
Justin Creech | Police Officer, Madison Police Department
Lisa Graves | Executive Director, Center for Media and Democracy
Sharlen Moore | Executive Director, Urban Underground
Rudy Bankston | Community Liaison, Madison Metropolitan School District
Moderated by Ali Muldrow, Director of Youth Programming, GSAFE
Exhibition: Faces of Incarceration: Changing the Narrative | Playhouse Gallery | JUL 13 – AUG 27, 2017
Portraits honor and humanize the people impacted by Wisconsin’s criminal justice system. Artists of the Atwood Atelier and project creator Pat Dillon collaborate in these stories and portraits painted from life. Faces of Incarceration aims to contribute to current conversations about race, justice and inequity.
“Faces of Incarceration aims to reverse the stigma imposed on people once caught up in the criminal justice system. It shows that many emerge to live lives of dignity and extreme purpose,” said Pat Dillon, the show’s creator. “Wisconsin has the highest rate of incarceration of people of color than any state in the country. When they or any person returns to their community after the trauma of incarceration, they are more often stigmatized than embraced, vulnerable to revocation for non-criminal acts, and locked out of opportunity such as adequate housing and life sustaining work.”
Exhibition Reception | Playhouse Gallery | SAT, JUL 22, 6 PM – 9 PM
At 8 PM on the Rotunda Stage, join a panel discussion with formerly incarcerated participants and criminal justice reform experts, and listen to poetry from prison. Presenters include: Judge Everett Mitchell (Circuit Court Judge), Jerome Dillard (EXPO), Caliph Muab’el (Focused Interruption Coalition), James Morgan (MOSES), Carmella Glenn (Just Bakery), Melissa Ludin (EXPO) and Rudy Bankston (MMSD/Edgewood College) and Adrian Molitor (poet).
Screening of Milwaukee 53206 | Rotunda Studio | THU, AUG 24, 6 PM
The film Milwaukee 53206 is a one hour documentary that chronicles the lives of those affected by incarceration in America’s most incarcerated ZIP code. Through the intimate stories of three 53206 residents, we witness the high toll that mass incarceration takes on individuals and families. The film also illuminates the story of people from across the United States who live with the daily effects of mass incarceration.
Overture Center’s four galleries create a forum for diverse artistic expression that fosters the growth of local artists, curators and arts organizations. Three galleries radiate off Rotunda Lobby and the Playhouse Gallery serves as lobby for The Playhouse Theater. Overture Galleries and their receptions (sponsored by Overture Center) are free and open to the public.
Located in Overture Center for the Arts at 201 State Street, Overture Galleries are free and open to the public Monday through Thursday from 9 AM – 5:30 PM, Friday from 9 AM – 9 PM, Saturday from 10:30 AM – 9 PM and Sunday from 12 PM – 5 PM
Playhouse Gallery is sponsored by Madison Community Foundation and by contributions to Overture Center for the Arts. Gallery II is sponsored by the Arts Access Fund, a component fund of the Madison Community Foundation, and by contributions to Overture Center for the Arts.
