Abolition in Practice: Journeys in Art, Harm, and Healing

Participants are invited to consider how veterans can create a collective statement on values, healing, and transformation. In this workshop, we will share Art, Harm, and Healing, a statement written by the Humans of Life Row collective, a group of men serving life sentences in Illinois. We will tell the story of how the statement came into being, exploring why the men felt it was important to articulate their collective commitments as they worked together to create an exhibition while incarcerated in a maximum-security prison. Drawing on their experiences and reflections, we will invite workshop participants to consider how veterans might develop a collective statement of their own, grounded in their experiences, values, and visions for healing and transformation. James (Jimmy) Soto was exonerated after 42 years of incarceration. He is a human rights advocate, artist, and law student at IT-Chicago-Kent College of Law. He also works as a paralegal at Northwestern Law School. Jimmy earned his bachelor's degree from Northwestern University's Prison Education Program and was also an active member of the Prison+Neighborhood Arts/Education Project's Think Tank. He is the founder and director of the #BuildCommunitiesNotPrisons campaign, is the President of the Board of Directors at Walls Turned Sideways, and is on the board of the Illinois Prison Project. He also works closely with the Beyond Prisons Initiative and the Humans of Life Row Project. Alice Kim is an educator, cultural organizer and writer based in Chicago. She is director of the Beyond Prisons Initiative, a community-based hub for building knowledge and culture across the prison wall. Alice teaches in prisons and creates platforms for truthtelling in multiple mediums ranging from exhibition, storytelling and creative writing. Alice was a leader in the movement to abolish capital punishment in Illinois and nationwide, working closely with people on death row including members of the Death Row Ten. She was instrumental in the campaign that led to blanket commutations of Illinois’ death sentences in 2003, now works with people serving life sentences in Illinois, and spearheads the Humans of Life Row project. She is a cofounder of Chicago Torture Justice Memorials and co-leads CTJM’s oral history project. Alice is coeditor of The Long Term: Resisting Life Sentences, Working Toward Freedom. She also teaches with College Unbound. Venue: Hyde Park Art Center - MMR