In 2024 Pablo Mendoza and I opened a gallery and community space dedicated to people impacted by incarceration. The project was incubated out of the Prison + Neighborhood Arts/Education Project (a project I co-founded in 2011). We called the space Walls Turned Sideways, in honor of the quote by Angela Davis: “Walls Turned Sideways Are Bridges”. The title seemed like an apt way to describe what Pablo and I set out to do: create bridges between artists and communities inside prisons with families and communities outside of prisons, using art, education and healing.
For more than a decade my work with Prison + Neighborhood Arts/Education Project had been to co-organize the art and exhibitions team with collaborator Damon Locks. For years we steered creative work that came out of PNAP classes at Stateville prison, along with Aaron Hughes, Claire Pentecost, Anna Martine Whitehead and others. We organized exhibitions and community projects that brought artwork out of the prison and into Chicago neighborhoods. Families and friends of the artists in prison came out to celebrate and ‘be with’ their loved ones in new ways– through art and community. These experiences, along with a dream of mine to have a storefront where people impacted by incarceration could gather, collaborate and build power together, led me to hunker down and work with someone directly impacted. In 2020 I met Pablo and pitched the idea to him. He brought an important lens– that of healing from incarceration– to the project. As a person who has not experienced incarceration, is not trained in healing practices and someone who has, admittedly, buried my own feelings of rage and sadness to just “do the work”, I was not clear about the need for healing. The many days, months and years of working with Pablo changed that.
In 2021 Pablo and I got started by conducting research to learn from allied organizations and activists, families of incarcerated people, and currently incarcerated people. Through interviews and surveys we asked: Is there a need for an art and community space for families of incarcerated folks? If so, what should it look like and who/what should be involved in such a space? In addition, Anna Martine Whitehead and Andres Hernandez, with support from Amanda Williams taught a summer art class at Stateville prison. The class thought about how to create liberatory spaces and what a community space their families would visit might be.
Through these avenues of inquiry and creative engagement, and regular meetings with our Advisory Board (see below), the overwhelming feedback we received was:
> There are few spaces in the city, and specifically on the Westside of Chicago, that connect with families and kids of incarcerated people through art, and there are no spaces
specifically dedicated to this community.
> There is a need for a space where impacted communities can congregate and educate each other and their loved ones about experiences with incarceration.
> There is a need for a space for formerly incarcerated artists to show and sell their work.
> To see more information about our research, who we interviewed and more, please see our report.
We also organized an amazing advisory board of artists and formerly incarcerated people helped shape our work. Thank you to: Eric Blackmon, Kevin Blumenberg, Monica Cosby, Andres Hernandez, Aaron Hughes, Raphel Jackson, Tess Landon, Damon Locks, Joseph Mapp, Muneca Mulero, and Anna Martine Whitehead.
After we got an affirmative “YES” from our community, we set out to look for spaces on the westside. It took us almost 2 years to find a spot which was a raw building, with electrical and HVAC but no plumbing. With the love and support of comrades, community and funders we were able to transform the building into a wonderful space, that, in its first year saw more than 1000 people come through. Within a year it was clear that Walls Turned Sideways needed it’s own operational framework, so we spun off from PNAP, but our work with students, staff and supports of PNAP remains.
Walls Turned Sideways is now a robust community place that hosts regular exhibitions, political education events, healing circles and art workshops and more. Even as the week to week at the Walls Turned Sideways can be busy, for me, one of the best things that happens is that folks find each other. That is to say, we regularly see people who were once locked up together see folks they haven’t seen in years, or decades, as incarceration splits up familial and communal relationships just like the system of slavery did. Seeing brothers and sisters reconnect, share phone numbers and connect again through events or just meet ups at Walls Turned Sideways is one, small, but critical way we heal together and maintain those bridges.