Museums and Prisons: A Conversation with Dr. Baz Dreisinger, Devon Simmons, and Matthew Wilson

How do you tell the history of a society in crisis? What does it mean to transform sites of injustice into spaces for art?

Join us for a conversation about the relationship between museums and prisons, presented in conjunction with The Writing on the Wall and featuring Dr. Baz Dreisinger (who conceived the project together with her students at John Jay College and artist Hank Willis Thomas), Devon Simmons, and Matthew Wilson. The discussion will be moderated by Dr. Rachel Nelson, director of the Institute of the Arts and Sciences, and Dr. Luke A. Fidler.

The Writing on the Wall is organized by Rachel Nelson and Gina Dent in partnership with the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History as part of Visualizing Abolition, a public scholarship initiative at UC Santa Cruz designed to shift the social attachment to prisons through art and education. Funding for Visualizing Abolition is provided by the Mellon Foundation.

Image: The Writing on the Wall exhibition (installation view), photo by Daris Jasper @culturesaving.