About the Event
jackie sumell’s work explores the interdependence of social sculpture, mindfulness practices, humanness, and prison abolition. She has spent the last two decades working directly with incarcerated folx, most notably her elders Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox. Her work has been exhibited extensively throughout the US and Europe. An ardent public speaker and organizer, sumell’s long-standing work with the Angola 3 has positioned her at the forefront of the public campaign to end solitary confinement in the US, inviting us to imagine a landscape without prisons. She has been the recipient of multiple residencies and fellowships including, but not limited to, an A Blade of Grass Fellowship, Creative Capital, Art 4 Justice, Robert Rauschenberg Artist-as-Activist Fellowship, Soros Justice Fellowship, Eyebeam Project Fellowship, and a Schloss Solitude Residency Fellowship. sumell is based in New Orleans, where she continues to work on Herman’s House, Solitary Gardens, the Abolitionist’s Apothecary, and several other community-generated, advocacy-based projects.
Organized by Natasha Bowdoin, Associate Professor of Art and Associate Dean of Humanities.
Sponsored by the Humanities Research Center, with support from the Deptartment of Art, the Office of Research Creative Ventures Fund, the Center for Environmental Studies, and the Moody Center for the Arts.
