Undoing the Carceral State: a visual protest against injustice

Undoing the Carceral State is an exhibition organized by currently incarcerated artist and scholar, Joseph Dole. As a recipient of an Illinois Humanities grant, Dole commissioned 14 other incarcerated artists to make new works explaining the contexts and conditions of incarceration. The artists developed stunning responses that use popular graphics, metaphor, and humor to examine the economics of incarceration, how new laws impact their lives, the toxic conditions of prisons, and the ways that families endure the effects of incarceration.

While the artworks 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.

Learn more about the exhibition here.