Event

Freedom & Captivity Public Launch

• Freedom & Captivity

Join us at Fox Field, Kennedy Park in Portland, ME on Thursday, September 2nd for an evening of community, art, and abolition! We will project works from the Art on Abolition online exhibition while enjoying ‘Songs of Freedom & Captivity,’ a mixtape curated by Samuel James. There will be speakers, organizations tabling about their work, and ample opportunities to get involved!

As part of this launch, we are pleased to publish the Freedom & Captivity Calendar Zine, featuring many of the events and exhibitions occurring this fall. A PDF version is available to download here.

Ongoing Exhibition

Freedom& Captivity: Art on Abolition

• Freedom & Captivity

In this digital multimedia exhibition presented by Freedom & Captivity, artists were asked to consider: What does abolition look like, sound like, feel like?

Ongoing Exhibition

The Advent of Green Acre, A Bahá’í Center of Learning

• Maine Historical Society

The Eliot Bahá’í Archives preserves history relating to Green Acre, a Bahá’í Center for Learning. Sarah Jane Farmer established the Green Acre conferences in Eliot, Maine in 1894. Lecturers discussed peace, world religions, health, freedom, and social justice topics. A 1900 meeting in Palestine with ‘Abdu’l-Baha, the imprisoned leader of the Baha’i Faith, changed Farmer’s life. Afterward, she established Green Acre, which became a Baha’i Center of Learning that continues to operate today. On view through October 2, 2021. This exhibition is online and in-person through a timed ticket process. Make your reservation at www.mainehistory.org.

Ongoing Exhibition

Begin Again: reckoning with intolerance in Maine

• Maine Historical Society

BEGIN AGAIN examines the roots of social justice topics and aims to stimulate civic engagement and foster dialogue among Mainers. The Black Lives Matter movement, political unrest, and COVID-19 converged into a societal crisis. BEGIN AGAIN explores Maine’s historic role in these crises and the national dialogue on race and equity through a physical exhibition and a virtual program series. On view through December 31, 2021. This exhibition is online and in person through a timed ticket process. Make your reservation at www.mainehistory.org.

Ongoing Exhibition

Bob Thompson: This House Is Mine

• Colby College Museum of Art

The first museum exhibition devoted to the artist in more than twenty years, Bob Thompson: This House Is Mine traces Thompson’s brief but prolific transatlantic career, examining his formal inventiveness and his engagement with universal themes of collectivity, bearing witness, struggle, and justice. Bringing together paintings and works on paper from almost fifty public and private collections across the United States, This House Is Mine centers Bob Thompson’s work within expansive art historical narratives and ongoing dialogues about the politics of representation, charting his enduring influence. On view through January 9, 2022.

Ongoing Exhibition

First Freedoms in Captivity

• First Amendment Museum

In First Freedoms in Captivity, incarcerated Maine veterans have created art that explores their experiences with their First Amendment freedoms – the freedoms of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition. View the exhibition online or in person at the First Amendment Museum, located at 184 State St, Augusta, ME 04330 – directly beside the Governor’s Mansion. Open Monday through Friday, 10:00 am -4:00 pm. On view through December 31, 2021.

Ongoing Exhibition

Passing the Time: Artwork by World War II German Prisoners of War in Aroostook County

• Maine Historical Society

In 1944, the U.S. Government established Camp Houlton, a prisoner-of-war (POW) internment camp for captured German soldiers during World War II. Many of the prisoners worked on local farms planting and harvesting potatoes. Camp Houlton housed about 3,000 prisoners and operated until May 1946. The Aroostook County Historical and Art Museum in Houlton, a Maine Memory Network Contributing Partner since 2003, has 717 items and 13 exhibits online including images of the POW soldiers and artwork they created. On view through December 31, 2021, Passing the Time…, is on view both online and in-person at the Maine Historical Society. Make your reservation at www.mainehistory.org.

Ongoing Exhibition

States of Incarceration

• Oak Institute for Human Rights

States of Incarceration is a collaboration of over 800 students and others deeply affected by incarceration in 18 states and counting. The United States incarcerates the highest percentage of its people, including immigrants, than any country in the world – and at any point in its history. How did this happen? What new questions does the past challenge us to ask about what is happening now? To find answers, this project examines local communities’ histories through courses at universities, local teams share stories, search archives, and visit correctional facilities. Together, these stories represent a diverse genealogy of the incarceration generation. It challenges all of us to remember our own past and use the insights of history to shape what happens next. Oak Insitute aims to add Maine to the exhibit over the course of the academic year. Our community’s history will add a different story that teaches us all something new. On view through January 2022 in Colby College’s Diamond Atrium.

Event

Opening Reception of Freedom & Captivity: Maine Voices Beyond Prison Walls

• UMVA Gallery

Join us for the opening reception of the UMVA exhibition, Freedom & Captivity: Maine Voices Beyond Prison Walls during Portland’s First Friday Art Walk on September 3rd from 5 p.m – 8:30 p.m. Located at 516 Congress Street, Portland, ME.

Ongoing Exhibition

Freedom & Captivity: Maine Voices Beyond Prison Walls

• UMVA Gallery

In this exhibition, residents and former residents of incarceration facilities express their lives in the art they create. The work defies stereotypes and emphasizes that we are all more than the worst act we have committed. We are whole people with loves and losses, skills, talents, ideas and gifts…and a longing to be free. On view through October 29, 2021. UMVA Gallery is located at 516 Congress Street in Portland, Maine. Click here for gallery hours.

Podcast

‘Let Us Not Flatter Ourselves’: Abolition’s History

• Freedom & Captivity

Episode 1: Remembering the antecedents of today’s abolitionist movement. With Daniel Minter, co-founder of Indigo Arts Alliance, Lydia Moland, Professor of Philosophy at Colby College, and Kate McMahon, National Museum of African American History and Culture. Moderated by Marcelle Medford, Professor of Sociology at Bates College. 

Workshop

Freedom & Captivity Primary Source Set

• Maine State Museum

Educators of K-12 and homeschool students are invited to join us for an online workshop exploring the history of incarceration in Maine. We will present a new packet of educational materials developed for the statewide Freedom & Captivity collaboration. Themed groups of images, artifacts, documents, and audio clips prompt students to investigate the past and present of Maine’s prisons. 

Event

Opening Reception of First Freedoms in Captivity

• First Amendment Museum

Join the First Amendment Museum for the opening of First Freedoms in Captivity on Wednesday, September 8th, 2021 from 5:00 – 7:00 pm. The exhibition, comprised of artwork created by incarcerated Maine veterans, explores their experiences with their First Amendment freedoms. 

Ongoing Exhibition

What Rhymes with Freedom?: Visions of Decarceration

• SPACE

On view through October 30th, 2021, SPACE is pleased to present the exhibition, What Rhymes with Freedom?, highlighting work that explores alternative futurisms, liberatory archives, and artist activism as part of a deliberate world-building against police states, incarceration, immigrant detention centers, and global political prisoners. This project features the curatorial and collective platforms Museum of Capitalism, Border Patrol, Radical Archive, Colectivo los Ingrávidos, and a constellation of independent artists. Programs will include an artist talk hosted by Museum of Capitalism, a book launch on October First Friday with Border Patrol, and a panel discussion; details about each of these events can be found at space538.org. 

Podcast

‘Love is What the Transformation’s Got to Be:’ On accountability and punishment.

• Freedom & Captivity

Episode 2: With Joseph N. Jackson, Director, Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition (MPAC) and Director of Leadership Development, Maine Inside Out.

Ongoing Exhibition

Art Inside

• Waterville Creates

In Art Inside, Maine-based photographers Trent Bell, Aaron Flacke, Séan Alonzo Harris, and Lesley MacVane record artwork in these spaces inside Maine’s five prison facilities. The art featured in their photographs, all created by incarcerated people, resists the isolating and dehumanizing dimensions of punitive confinement, offering a visual literacy of freedom and creativity, of selfhood and relationality. We hope this work might provoke a reconsideration about the use of punitive confinement to address social problems. What might abolition look like? On view at Ticonic Gallery through October 30, 2021. Located at 10 Water Street, #106, Waterville, Maine 04901. For gallery hours, please call 207.616.0292.

Ongoing Exhibition

Stories of Incarceration: Portraits from the Penobscot County Jail Storytelling Project

• Penobscot Jail Storytelling Project, Railroad Square Cinema

The Penobscot Jail Storytelling Project is a community-based, multidisciplinary project raising up the voices and priorities of people who have been jailed in Penobscot County, Maine. Works from this ongoing series will be on view September 13 — October 18, 2021 in the Railroad Square Cinema lobby, located at 17 Railroad Square, Waterville, ME.

Film Screening

JACINTA

• Railroad Square Cinema | Maine Film Center

A feature documentary directed by Jessica Earnshaw, JACINTA is a deeply intimate portrait of mothers and daughters and the effects of trauma. The film follows a young woman in and out of prison as she attempts to break free from an inherited cycle of addiction, incarceration, and crime. “A searingly honest portrait of kinship and addiction.” — The Hollywood Reporter, Jordan Mintzer.

A discussion with Jacinta and the filmmakers will follow the screening.

Ongoing Exhibition

Art in Captivity: Inside Out

• Portland Public Library

In this exhibition, photographs from inside Maine’s Correctional Facilities reveal the human necessity to create art. On view in the Congress Street windows at Portland Public Library through October 15, 2021. The library is located at 5 Monument Square, Portland, Maine 04101.

Lecture

The Legal Fight Against Torture: Olga Sadovskaya, 2021 Oak Fellow

• Oak Institute for Human Rights

The 2021 Oak Fellow for the theme of Incarceration and Human Rights is Russian human rights lawyer Olga Sadovskaya. Olga is vice-chair of the Committee Against Torture, the largest and most notable anti-torture organization in Russia, which she and other activists began in 2000; Now the Committee against Torture is the largest and most notable anti-torture organization in Russia.

Join us in welcoming Olga to Colby’s campus and learning about her groundbreaking work on torture in Russia and its global implications. This event will be located at the Ostrove Auditorium in Colby College’s Diamond budiling.

Podcast

‘Prisons Don’t Actually Fix Anything:’ Ending Youth Incarceration

• Freedom & Captivity

Episode 3: On abolishing Long Creek and promoting alternatives to youth incarceration. With Maine Youth Justice organizers Adan Abdi and Skye Gosselin. Moderated by Ali Ali (Artistic Director, Maine Inside Out; Advocacy Director, Maine Youth Justice; Member, Portland Racial Equity Steering Committee). 

Webinar

Abolition for the 21st Century

• Colby Center for the Arts and Humanities

Join us for Abolition for the 21^st Century’ with Orisanmi Burton (Anthropology, American University, Abolition 101 video), Dylan Rodriguez (American Studies, UC-Riverside, founding member of Critical Resistance and author of Forced Passages: Imprisoned Radical Intellectuals and the U.S. Prison Regime) and Jackie Wang (Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity, USC and author of Carceral Capitalism).

Film Screening

CINEMA IN CONVERSATION: Films of Freedom, Captivity and Human Rights

• Railroad Square Cinema, Colby Center for the Arts and Humanities, Oak Institute for Human Rights

Time shown with The Way Life Is, MIFF24 Maine Shorts alum post-film.

Q&A with The Way Life Is director Sophie Nacht, University of Maine Professor of Sociology Brian Pitman, and Kayla Kalel, Penobscot County Jail Storytelling Project co-coordinator.

Time: Fox Rich is a fighter. The entrepreneur, abolitionist and mother of six boys has spent the last two decades campaigning for the release of her husband, Rob G. Rich, who is serving a 60-year sentence for a robbery they both committed in the early 90s in a moment of desperation. Combining the video diaries Fox has recorded for Rob over the years with intimate glimpses of her present-day life, director Garrett Bradley paints a mesmerizing portrait of the resilience and radical love necessary to prevail over the endless separations of the country’s prison-industrial complex. “Time is an achingly beautiful film of perseverance and hope in the shadow of the American carceral system.” –Toussaint Egan, Paste.

Before the film, take in the incredible portraits and accompanying stories of our Art in the Lobby exhibition Stories of Incarceration: Portraits from the Penobscot County Jail Storytelling Project.

Film Screening

The ABCs of Abolition

• Freedom & Captivity

What does a 21st century abolitionist Maine look like? Freedom & Captivity invited Mainers to suggest words that capture their vision of abolition. Over a hundred participants, from South Penobscot to York, from Wilton to Herman, responded. The ABCs of Abolition (9min) showcases their words and interpretations, offering a hopeful and compelling portrait of the way Maine could be. Join us in imagining a different, and better, future.

The ABCs of Abolition was filmed and produced by Catherine Besteman, Lorne Carter, and Reagan Dennis for Freedom & Captivity.

Film Screening

TIME

• PMA Films, Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition

Fox Rich is a fighter. The entrepreneur, abolitionist and mother of six boys has spent the last two decades campaigning for the release of her husband, Rob G. Rich, who is serving a 60-year sentence for a robbery they both committed in the early 90s in a moment of desperation. Combining the video diaries Fox has recorded for Rob over the years with intimate glimpses of her present-day life, director Garrett Bradley paints a mesmerizing portrait of the resilience and radical love necessary to prevail over the endless separations of the country’s prison-industrial complex. 

Presented by PMA Films and Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition in Congress Square Park (corner of High and Congress St). Free to the public. An introduction and reflections on the film presented by Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition begins at 6:15 pm with the screening to follow at 7:00 pm. 

Workshop

What Does Abolition Feel Like?

• Colby Center for the Arts and Humanities

Performance artist Anna Martine Whitehead discusses her artistic practice, focused on how she centers Black liberation, queer livingness, and creative alternatives to policing and prisons in her work. An artist talk will be followed by a conversation between Whitehead and performer and poet, Gabrielle Civil.  

Introduced by Gwyneth Shanks (Theater and Dance at Colby).

Workshop

Somatic Liberation Dance Wave Experience

• Indigo Arts Alliance, Keita Whitten

In participation with the state-wide initiative Freedom & Captivity, Keita Whitten, licensed therapist, healer and performer will be presenting a Somatic Liberation Dance Wave Experience. This event is planned to take place in person at Indigo Arts Alliance‘s 60 Cove Street Studio (Portland, ME) on Tuesday, September 28th at 5 pm. This special event is a continuation of the Somatic Abolitionist Community Dance Performance Video documented in July.

For this final part of the series— Movement as Healing and Wellness; Good for the Soul, Body and Mind, participants will be actively engaged in movements led by Keita Whitten. Movement will be grounded in exploring the question, “what does liberation and freedom feel like in your body?”

Participants will engage in a 90-minute workshop concluding in a 15-minute meditation. Participants are asked to dress in comfortable clothing that will allow you to stretch and move. All performance levels are invited, no dance experience is required. This event is free and open to the public, ages 16+. Space is limited, so be sure to register in advance!

Webinar

The Soundscape of American Hyperincarceration

• Portland Public Library

Dr. Andrew McGraw (University of Richmond) situates the Richmond, Virginia city jail within the highly racialized context of contemporary American hyperincarceration and describes the ways in which the sounds of suffering were muted in the transition from the old city jail to a new, “cutting edge” facility in 2014. McGraw discusses the music that residents have produced in both facilities and concludes by arguing that the contemporary jail is only one component of several interlocking structures that sonically segregates Richmond’s majority African American population from its minority Anglo-American population. Studying carceral soundscapes represents a political intervention by bringing into the public auditorium the sounds of suffering that have been muted both within and without penal institutions.

Webinar

Colby Visiting Writers’ Series: Tongo Eisen-Martin

• Colby Creative Writing Program, Colby English Department

San Francisco’s eighth poet laureate, Tongo Eisen-Martin, is a poet, movement worker, and educator. His latest curriculum on extrajudicial killing of Black people, We Charge Genocide Again!, has been used as an educational and organizing tool throughout the country. Sponsored by the Bullock-Clark-Donnelle Fund for Visiting Writers.

Ongoing Exhibition

Monitor: Surveillance, Data, and the New Panoptic

• Institute of Contemporary Art at MECA&D

Our phones record our every movement, call, and contact; cameras record our passage along the street. Collected data streams to fusion centers, and predictive policing targets specific communities for more intensive monitoring. Online sites record our interests and habits in order to engage in “better product placement” while Siri and Alexa listen in. Connected to the economy and mass surveillance, from the high-tech to the low-tech and the mundane everyday, how are artists looking back at, contesting, and revealing the systems that monitor our daily lives? Monitor: Surveillance, Data, and the New Panoptic explores the ways in which our lives are being influenced and determined by visible and invisible actions of “watching over”, reflecting on the prevalence of surveillance in contemporary contexts as well as its historical antecedents. The exhibition will be accompanied by a film series. On view through December 10, 2021, at the Institute of Contemporary Art at MECA&D in Portland, Maine.

Event

Opening Reception of Monitor: Surveillance, Data, and the New Panoptic

• Institute of Contemporary Art at MECA&D

Join the ICA at MECA&D for the opening reception of Monitor: Surveillance, Data, and the New Panoptic during October’s First Friday Art Walk on Congress Street, October 1, 2021 from 5:00 – 8:00 pm.

Event

Opening Reception for Art in Captivity: Inside Out

• Portland Public Library

Join Portland Public Library for the opening reception of Art in Captivity: Inside Out during October’s First Friday Art Walk on October 1, 2021, from 5:00 – 8:00 pm. On view in the library’s Congress Street windows, located at 5 Monument Square, Portland, Maine 04101.

Workshop

What Does Liberation Sound Like?

• TUG Collective, The Cannery at South Penobscot, Downeast Restorative Justice

Restorative justice advocates often look to the traditional African concept of ubuntu (which has varied translations related to human connectivity) to ground their movement toward progressive incarceration alternatives. Similarly, the mbira (pronounced em-BEE-ra), a family of musical instruments native to the Shona people of Zimbabwe, hold history and knowledge that can inspire us. Traditionally played to call the ancestors, the mbira became instruments of resistance to colonial rule and a source of sonic resilience during Zimbabwe’s liberation movements. How might the mbira—building them, playing them, making music with them together—help us find our own sounds of liberation? Workshop from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm. Public sharing from 5:00 to 6:00 pm.

This free workshop will be held at The Cannery in South Penobscot and is limited to 12-15 participants. No instrument-building or music-making experience necessary. All materials will be provided. Lunch will be provided, too! The organizers kindly request that all participants be vaccinated against COVID-19, with limited exceptions made for participants with legitimate medical conditions (in which case, masking and physical distancing will be required). For more information, and to sign up, please contact: info@cannerysouthpenobscot.org

Film Screening

Postponed: Art on Abolition Shorts

• Friends of Congress Square Park

**Due to weather, this event has been postponed. Date to be determined.** Join Freedom & Captivity and Friends of Congress Square Park for a free outdoor screening of the short films and media works featured in the Art on Abolition digital exhibition.

Podcast

‘Why Do We Need To Be Punishing People?’: Abolitionist Feminism and the Last Girl

• Freedom & Captivity

Episode 4: On the long-term impacts of charges related to sex trafficking. With dee Clarke, Founder, Survivor Speak USA and Samaa Abdurraqib, SUSSA board member and Associate Director, Maine Humanities Council.

Workshop

What Does Abolition Sound Like?

• Colby Center for the Arts and Humanities

A performance workshop with artist-musician Paul Rucker creating music in response to prompts by Robin D. G. Kelley (History, UCLA, author of Freedom Dreams).

Event

Maine Writers on Freedom & Captivity

• Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance

A reading hosted by Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance in Congress Square Park. Four Maine authors, non-fiction writers Craig Grossi and Mira Ptacin, former Maine State Poet Laureate Betsy Sholl, and Portland Poet Laureate Maya Williams will be sharing work related to freedom and incarceration. Join us for this free event!

Lecture

The Torture Letters, Reckoning with Police Violence: Laurence Ralph, Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University

• Oak Institute for Human Rights

Laurence is a Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University. His research and writing explore how police abuse, mass incarceration, and the criminalization of the drug trade naturalize disease, disability, and premature death for urban residents of color, who are often seen as expendable by “polite” society. Theoretically, his research lies at the nexus of critical medical and political anthropology, African American studies, and emerging scholarship on disability. Combining these literatures, he shows show violence and injury play a central role in the daily lives of Black urban populations.

His most recent book, Torture Letters, is about torture as an open secret in Chicago. Between 1972 and 1991, at least 125 black suspects were tortured by Chicago police officers working under former Police Commander John Burge. For more than fifty years, police officers who took an oath to protect and serve have instead beaten, electrocuted, suffocated, and raped hundreds—perhaps thousands—of Chicago residents. The Torture Letters chronicles the history of torture in Chicago, the burgeoning activist movement against police violence, and the American public’s complicity in perpetuating torture at home and abroad.

Film Screening

MONITOR: Oversight Machines (66min.)

• ICA at MECA&D, Congress Square Park

A curated evening of short films presented in collaboration with SPACE, in conjunction with Monitor: Surveillance, Data, and the New Panoptic, an exhibition in the Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art & Design. The MONITOR film series is curated by Sophie Hamacher. 

Featuring: Find, Fix, Finish by Sylvain Cruiziat & Mila Zhluktenko, 2017, 19min.; Watching the Detectives by Chris Kennedy, 2017, 33min, Silent.; ALGO Rhythm by Manu Luksch, 2019, 13min56s.

Location: Congress Square Park, Portland, ME.

Podcast

Alternatives to Incarceration: Drug Policy

• Freedom & Captivity

Episode 5: On alternatives to incarceration that focus on harm reduction rather than punishment. With Courtney Allen, Policy Director, Maine Recovery Advocacy Project and moderated by Winifred Tate, Professor of Anthropology, Colby College and Director, Maine Drug Policy Lab at Colby College. 

Webinar

Reparations as Black Antagonism

• Colby Center for the Arts and Humanities

Performance and talk by artist Cameron Rowland. Cameron Rowland is an American artist. Rowland graduated from Wesleyan University with a BA in 2011, and after being awarded the MacArthur Fellowship returned there to address the student body. He spoke about his 2018 work Depreciation that critically examined the economics of slavery.

Event

Art &: Dread Scott – The Art of Liberation

• Colby Museum's Lunder Institute for American Art

Dread Scott imagines a world free of oppression and exploitation, with resistance and liberation at the forefront. During this talk, the artist will present a range of work from the past 30 years that address themes of American identity and patriotism, including  the criminalization of Black and Latino youth and the continuum of resistance against murder by police connecting the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s with contemporary Black Lives Matters organizing. 

Scott’s art allows audience members to explore important questions surrounding the economic, social, and governing ideas of America. His pivotal work Slave Rebellion Reenactment will serve as a starting point to address Freedom and Captivity, the 2021 theme of Colby’s Center for Arts and Humanities, as well as Incarceration and Human Rights, the focus of this year’s Oak Institute for Human Rights Program.

This special artist talk will take place in person at Greene Block & Studios located at 18 Main Street, Waterville in Maine.

The Lunder Institute for American Art’s programs in 2021-2022, including Dread Scott’s Senior Fellowship, are made possible through the support of the Lunder Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Alice Kang P’21 and OhSang Kwon P’21, the Oak Institute for Human Rights, and the Buck Lab for Climate and Environment.

Lecture

The Global Fight Against Torture: Gerald Staberock, Secretary General of the World Organization Against Torture

• Oak Institute for Human Rights

Gerald Staberock serves as the Secretary General of the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT). Previously, he served over eight years with the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), including as Director of its Center for the Independence of Judges and Lawyers (CIJL) and as Director of its Global Security and Rule of Law Initiative. 

Gerald is a lawyer from Germany, who has published on issues of the rule of law in transition countries, the domestic implementation of international standards, and human rights, including on the lack of accountability over intelligence agencies.

From 1998-2002 he worked at the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) in Warsaw coordinating rule of law and anti-torture projects, including prison reform projects in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Webinar

Healing Inside Out: Health and Recovery in the Carceral State

• Maine Inside Out

The National Acupuncture Detoxification Association trains people in the NADA protocol, an ear acupressure and acupuncture intervention for trauma, substance misuse, abuse, dependence and related behavioral and mental health conditions. NADA’s roots and history come from community care for the people, by the people. MIO will share original art and facilitate conversations about social change at this national conference. 

Workshop

Women and the Economics and Impacts of Incarceration

• Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition

In Maine, women are the fastest-growing segment of the incarcerated population, most are serving drug-related charges, and one in every 14 children has a parent who is incarcerated. Incarceration, whether it be of men, women, or children takes a toll on the economic, physical, and mental well-being of women and children. What are the solutions? Where do we go from here?

As part of the Maine Women’s Summit on Economic Justice, Jan Collins, Assistant Director of MPAC, will be facilitating this workshop on October 14 from 1:45 pm to 3:00 pm. The 2021 Summit will be a community-focused conversation on the connections between civic engagement and economic, gender, and racial justice. The event will feature LaTosha Brown, the co-founder of Black Voters Matter, as the Keynote Speaker, and will include workshops, live performances, and local community-level discussions.

Film Screening

MONITOR: All Light Everywhere (109min.)

• ICA at MECA&D, PMA Films

Screening of All Light Everywhere, a film by Theo Anthony, in collaboration with the Portland Museum of Art and the exhibition Monitor: Surveillance, Data, and the New Panoptic in the ICA at Maine College of Art & Design.

Event

Navigating the Fog of Reentry in Maine

• Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition, Maine Prisoner Re-Entry Network

The Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition and the Maine Prisoner Re-Entry Network are proud to present this virtual panel discussion on navigating reentry in Maine.

Virtual Conference

Anti-Racist Organizing in Maine

• Community Change Inc.

Community Change Inc. invites you to come take part in a convening of organizers, activists, leaders, and educators committed to the movement for racial justice in Maine. This is a unique opportunity to deepen in regional anti-racist education, learn from front-line activists, and strengthen our community relationships towards more robust collective action.

Podcast

‘Finding Our Courage’: Alternatives to Incarceration for Addressing Harm

• Freedom & Captivity

Episode 6: With Bruce King, Co-Executive Director, Maine Inside Out, Kels Park, former Policy and Community Advocacy Coordinator, Restorative Justice Institute of Maine, Laura Ligouri, Founder and Executive Director, Mindbridge, and Leo Hylton, Executive Secretary of the Maine State Prison branch of the NAACP and columnist for Mainer.

Webinar

ART & Art for Social Change

• Colby College Museum of Art, Maine Inside Out

Join us for a conversation that delves into how art has the ability to strengthen social justice work. We’ll hear the perspectives of educators and artists from a diversion program in New York City called, Project Reset, in which participants attend an arts program as an alternative to appearing in court, as well as leaders of Maine Inside Out, an arts organization that builds a movement for transformative justice. A Q&A will follow the conversation. This program is the first in a three-week series of talks that connect to the exhibition, Bob Thompson: This House is Mine.

Webinar

Panel Discussion: Transforming Surveillance

• ICA at MECA&D

Artists in the exhibition, Monitor: Surveillance, Data, and the New Panoptic, at the ICA at MECA&D discuss their work and how they contest and transform surveillance. This event will be held virtually.

Opening Reception

Opening Reception of Home Fires

• University of New England Art Gallery - Portland

The University of New England Art Gallery on the Portland Campus is pleased to present Home Fires: Freedom & Captivity. An opening reception, free and open to the public, will be held Friday, Oct. 22, from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. 

The experience of having a family member or friend who has been through the carceral system, or having family history that involves incarceration, is very common in the United States. However, this experience is not commonly shared outside of the family context. Incarceration can also encompass larger historical experiences while maintaining its personal impact. “Home Fires” presents the work of artists who have experienced incarceration in their immediate or distant family, or who use this concept as a structural theme in their work, to shine a light on what incarceration can mean for those of us who have stayed at home. The exhibit features the work of Gustavo and Gaelyn Aguilar (TUG Collective), Carol Ayoob, Julie K. Gray, Judy Glickman Lauder, Forrest Meyer, Mai Snow, Lauren Tosswill, and Kim Wilson. The exhibition will be on view through January 23.

Ongoing Exhibition

Home Fires

• University of New England Art Gallery, Portland Campus

Home Fires presents the work of artists who have experienced incarceration in their immediate or distant family, or who use this concept as a structural theme in their work, to shine a light on what incarceration can mean for those of us who have stayed at home. The exhibit features the work of Gustavo and Gaelyn Aguilar (TUG Collective), Carol Ayoob, Julie K. Gray, Judy Glickman Lauder, Forrest Meyer, Mai Snow, Lauren Tosswill, and Kim Wilson. The exhibition will be on view through January 23.

Podcast

We’re Creating the Next Generation of Broken People’: Parenting and Prison

• Freedom & Captivity

Episode 7: On DHHS and how the carceral system impacts families and parenting. With Kayla Kalel, a previously incarcerated person who is currently a birthworker with low-income folks who self-identify as being in recovery or using substances, and Wendy Smith, Washington County Community College student, Me-Rap organizer, and naloxone distributor for Maine Access Points in long term recovery from substances and a resident at the Southern Maine Women’s Re-entry Center. Moderated by Cait Vaughan, birthworker, childbirth educator, harm reduction organizer, and Kayla Kalel, co-founder of the Birth Justice Collective. 

Webinar

Visualizing Incarceration

• Colby Center for the Arts and Humanities

A conversation with curator Sean Kelley (Eastern State Penitentiary), filmmaker and author Brett Story (Prison in 12 Landscapes; Prison Nation), and artist Rowan Renee.

Film Screening

MONITOR: Modes of Enclosure (71min.)

• ICA at MECA&D, SPACE

A curated evening of short films presented in collaboration with SPACE, in conjunction with Monitor: Surveillance, Data, and the New Panoptic, an exhibition in the Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art & Design. The MONITOR film series is curated by Sophie Hamacher. 

Featuring: Dear Bill Gates by Sarah Christman, 2006, 17min.; The FBI Blew up my Ice Skates by Sara Ebrahimi and Lindsey Martin, 2016, 7 min.; Mapping CCTV by Manu Luksch, 2008 2min54s.; Evidence of the Evidence by Alexander Johnston, 2017 22min.; One Document for Hope by Margaret Rorison, 7min.

Podcast

‘We are the Revolution’: Black P.O.W.E.R’s vision

• Freedom & Captivity

Episode 8: On what community-based safety and security should look like. With Mariana Angelo, co-founder of Black Portland Organizers Working to End Racism (known as Black P.O.W.E.R) and moderated by Michael Kebede, Policy Council, ACLU-Maine. 

Ongoing Exhibition

sea/sky, blood, earth, you

• Emery Community Arts Center

Imagining freedom, whether as decarceration if not outright abolition, requires empathy, and empathy—literally, the capacity to feel (pathos) together (em)—involves tapping into the part of ourselves that is relational. sea/sky, blood, earth, you starts from that which is relational, in this case, the experience of aging rooted in the body, to gather some finer meaning about fragility, resilience, and the performance of care. Tracing a relationship of kinship among caregivers, Returning Citizens, families, and reentry advocates, this multifaceted project aims to foster awareness of, and reform for, elderly and terminally-ill incarcerated individuals and Returning Citizens. On view through December 9, 2021. Gallery hours are 10:00 am – 6:00 pm, Monday through Saturday (closed Sundays and government holidays).

Action Meeting

Franklin County Community Action Meeting

• TUG Collective, Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition, Maine Prisoner Reentry Network, Maine Coastal Reentry Center

An open conversation facilitated by Bruce Noddin (Maine Prisoner Re-Entry Network) and Robyn Goff (Maine Coastal Regional Reentry Center). AND ALL ARE INVITED TO JOIN THE MEETING! Franklin County community leaders, substance use & mental health professionals, non-profits, churches, MDOC & County Jail partners, volunteers, re-entry specialists, formerly incarcerated, and more are encouraged to join us. The MPRN and MCRRC Team wants to hear more about you and your community, so be prepared to share a little or a lot about you and your role in the community. For more information, contact Jan Collins at janmariecollins57@gmail.com.

Location: Emery Community Arts Center, located on Academy St. (between Main St. and High St.) in downtown Farmington, Maine.

Webinar

Home Fires: A Conversation with Jan Collins

• University of New England Art Gallery - Portland

The UNE Art Gallery exhibition Home Fires centers the narrative of the families and loved ones of incarcerated people. This virtual conversation with Jan Collins, Assistant Director of Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition will discuss the themes and works featured in the exhibition.

Webinar

Visiting Artist Talk: Yazan Khalili

• ICA at MECA&D

The Maine College of Art & Design Visiting Artist Series, in partnership with the exhibition Monitor: Surveillance, Data, and the New Panoptic, in the Institute of Contemporary Art at MECA&D, presents a virtual artist talk by Yazan Khalili.

Event

Opening Reception: sea/sky, blood, earth, you

• Emery Community Arts Center

Join us for the opening reception of sea/sky, blood, earth, you at the Emery Community Arts Center in Farmington, ME; with a 20-minute presentation by Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition Assistant Director, Jan Collins, to follow at 7:00 pm. Then immediately following, without intermission, there will be a 15-minute workshop performance of Larraine Brown’s play, For the Next Guy, based on the life of Norman Kehling, who survived 30 years of incarceration, seven of which were spent in isolation. The night will close with a community Q&A and conversation with Collins, Kehling, Brown, and actor David Troup.

About For The Next Guy: Norman Kehling survived 30 years of incarceration, seven of which were spent in isolation. This original play is an uncensored account of those years and the chaotic childhood that preceded them. David Troup (Everyman Repertory Theatre) plays Norman and a cast of characters, giving voice to the varied dimensions of moral injury that lead to incarceration and to the complex layers of repair that accompany freedom.

Performance

Affirmation with Warp Trio

• Palaver Strings

Palaver Strings joins forces with the genre-defying chamber ensemble Warp Trio to present Affirmation live at One Longfellow Square in Portland, Maine. This program centers music and stories that have been suppressed or misrepresented in mainstream media narratives. At the heart of the project is Affirmation, a new concerto grosso for piano trio, percussion, electronics, and strings. Written by Warp Trio’s own Josh Henderson, this piece is inspired by Assata Shakur’s poetry, which, in Henderson’s words, “encapsulates the experiences of Black trauma, chaos, loss, and joy while maintaining a commitment to Black life and living.” Shakur’s writing, the campaign of fear coordinated against her, and her arrest and escape, all find potent echoes in our current political climate. Our program also features Kareem Roustom’s Dabke for String Orchestra, Florence Price’s Five Folk Songs in Counterpoint, and Akenya Seymour’s Fear the Lamb, which addresses the life and death of Emmett Till in three vivid movements. In this age of unprecedented access to truth and misinformation, Affirmation reflects on the struggle for representation, in the concert hall and the world at large.

Film Screening

Jacinta [Westbrook Partners for Prevention]

• Westbrook Partners for Prevention

Westbrook Partners for Prevention is proud to present this free screening of Jacinta followed by a panel discussion and overdose recognition & response training!

Jacinta is a documentary that follows a Maine woman’s struggles with substance use and addiction. The film does an incredible job of exploring generational trauma and the relationships between mothers and daughters. A message of hope resonates; Jacinta has received great reviews, including a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion featuring Jacinta, Gordon Smith, Director of State Opioid Response, Jonathan Sahrbeck, Cumberland County District Attorney, and Brittany Fearon.

The event will take place at the Westbrook Performing Arts Center located at 471 Stroudwater Street Westbrook, ME 04092. This facility comfortably seats 1000 people. We will be following CDC-recommended guidelines to prevent the spread of COVID-19, such as masking and social distancing. Please monitor your health and do not attend if you are experiencing any COVID-19 symptoms.

Performance / Workshop

Abolition Night at the Strand

• Opportunity Scholars of the University of Southern Maine

The first inaugural Justice Scholar Strategy Network Showcase will be hosted on November 5^th, 2021 at The Strand in Rockland, Maine. The evening is open to the public and will consist of a mix of performance and information brought to you by those with lived experience in the justice system. For those attending in person, there will be a welcome and registration time from 6-6:30 pm, and the event will start at 6:30 pm. The online event will start at 6:30 pm and a Zoom link will be provided upon registration. This event is hosted and co-designed in partnership with the Opportunity Scholars of the University of Southern Maine, the Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition, the University of Maine Augusta Prison Education Partnership, and Freedom & Captivity.

Film Screening

Jacinta [Part of Points North Institute’s Recovery in Maine]

• PMA Films, Points North Institute's Recovery in Maine

Friday, November 5 at 2 p.m. – followed by Q&A with filmmaker Jessica Earnshaw and subject Jacinta Hunt
Friday, November 5 at 5:30 p.m. – followed by Recovery in Maine panel including filmmaker Jessica Earnshaw

RSVP for one of these free community screenings of Jacinta. Please note: registered guests should arrive 10 minutes before film time, at which time guests will be seated on a first-come basis.

Shot over three years, the film begins at the Maine Correctional Center where Jacinta, 26, and her mother Rosemary, 46, are incarcerated together, both recovering from drug addiction. As a child, Jacinta became entangled in her mother’s world of drugs and crime and has followed her in and out of the system since she was a teenager. This time, as Jacinta is released from prison, she hopes to maintain her sobriety and reconnect with her 10-year-old daughter, Caylynn, who lives with her paternal grandparents. Despite her desire to rebuild her life for her daughter, Jacinta continually struggles against the forces that first led to her addiction.

Established in 2018, Points North Institute’s Recovery in Maine program is a statewide series of documentary film screenings intended to stimulate public discussions around substance use disorder, the recovery process, and our collective response to the opioid epidemic.

Podcast

Abolition From Within?

• Freedom & Captivity

Episode 9: On abolitionist possibilities within the criminal legal system.  With Natasha Irving, District Attorney, District 6, and Tina Nadeau, criminal defense lawyer, Executive Director of Maine Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and moderated by Michael Kebede, Policy Council, ACLU-Maine. 

Performance

An Evening with Maine Inside Out

• TUG Collective, Maine Inside Out

Maine Inside Out (MIO) is a statewide community of system impacted artists and changemakers. MIO creates and shares original art to analyze social problems, to imagine and practice community-led solutions, and to advocate for structural change. We believe art challenges oppression at the most fundamental level with bold visions for just futures.

Location: Emery Community Arts Center, located on Academy St. (between Main St. and High St.) in downtown Farmington, Maine.

Webinar

Solitary Confinement

• Colby Center for the Arts and Humanities

A conversation between philosopher Lisa Guenther (Queens University) and artist jackie sumell.

Film Screening

MONITOR: Cross Examinations (60min.)

• ICA at MECA&D, SPACE

A curated evening of short films presented in collaboration with SPACE, in conjunction with Monitor: Surveillance, Data, and the New Panoptic, an exhibition in the Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art & Design. Featuring: Prison Images by Harun Farocki, 2000, 60min. The MONITOR film series is curated by Sophie Hamacher. 

Podcast

Confronting Surveillance

• Freedom & Captivity

Episode 10: On the Maine Information and Analysis Center (MIAC) and challenging the use of fusion centers, facial recognition technology, and other forms of state surveillance. With Brendan McQuade, Professor of Criminology, University of Southern Maine. 

PERFORMANCE

Survivor Stories: Incarcerated Voices

• SPACE

Poems and stories— voices of the incarcerated men at the Maine State Prison— culled from a 15-week restorative justice and creative workshop class led by Professor Robert Bernheim and artist-in-residence Myles Bullen. Live performance, video documentation, writing, reflection, and sharing. This event is free but RSVP is encouraged. Doors at 6:00 pm, event at 6:30 pm EST.

Workshop

Gender, Feminism and Abolition

• Colby Center for the Arts and Humanities

A workshop with journalist Victoria Law. Law is an American anarchist activist, prison abolitionist, writer, freelance editor, and photographer.

Event

POSTPONED: Telling My Story: Memoir Writing by Residents of the Women’s Center, Maine Correctional Center

• SPEEDWELL Projects

Members of a small group of residents at the Maine Women’s Center will read from their nonfiction memoir work, followed by a discussion with writer, Patricia O’Donnell. Some are doing the courageous work of facing painful moments in their past and writing about them, inspired by the belief that writing about those moments helps the residents to understand them, and eventually heal. Others are writing their memories of happier moments of freedom. They are all motivated to tell their stories by the knowledge that doing so will give others the courage to share their stories.

Podcast

Immigrant Detention and Deportation

• Freedom & Captivity

Episode 11: On the impact of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) deportation on Maine. With Philip Mantis, Legal Director, Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project, Theresa and Soeun Kim, and Kelly F. Merrill and Reverend Zeb Green from De-ICE Maine.

Webinar

Visiting Artist Talk: American Artist

• ICA at MECA&D

The Maine College of Art & Design Visiting Artist Series, in partnership with the exhibition Monitor: Surveillance, Data, and the New Panoptic, in the Institute of Contemporary Art at MECA&D, presents an artist talk by American Artist.

Performance

Performance of Felon Poems

• Colby Center for the Arts and Humanities

Performed by Reginald Dwayne Betts.

Betts is an American poet, memoirist, and teacher. As a result of a carjacking he committed at the age of sixteen, he was sentenced to over eight years in prison. He has since gone on to author several award-winning works, including poetry, a memoir, and legal scholarship.

Film Screening

MONITOR: Sentenced by Sound (90min.)

• ICA at MECA&D

A curated evening of short films presented in conjunction with Monitor: Surveillance, Data, and the New Panoptic, an exhibition in the Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art & Design. The MONITOR film series is curated by Sophie Hamacher. 

Featuring Hacked Circuit by Deborah Stratman, 2014, 15min.; Walled/Unwalled by Lawrence Abu Hamdan, 2018, 21min.; Best of Luck with the Wall by Josh Begley, 2016, 7 min.; Border Control by Peggy Ahwesh, 2019, 4min.; Radfahrer (Cyclist) by Marc Thümmler, 2008, 28min.; It’s a Long Way from Amphioxus by Kamal Aljafari, 2019, 16min.

Performance

Changing The Narrative: We Are More Than A Number

• SPEEDWELL projects, Southern Maine Women's Reentry Center

This event intends to center the voices of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women from Maine in an effort to break the silence around what is it to be a woman in captivity and a seeker and demander of freedom. It hopes to ignite more energy and efforts around linking the voices of justice-impacted women in an effort to create a national (big dreams!) net of support for women who have lost their freedom and are on the path toward reclaiming it.

Ongoing Exhibition

Wilderness and Culture

• L.C. Bates Museum

Taking its cue from the 2021 state-wide initiative Freedom & Captivity, the 2022 L.C. Bates summer exhibition, Wilderness and Culture, invites artists to reflect upon the meanings that these two concepts hold for the natural world and the ways in which we conceive, represent, and imagine freedom and captivity in nature. Possible avenues of reflection are, for instance, wilderness, cultivation, and domestication. The L.C. Bates is a non-traditional, encyclopedic museum with a focus on the natural world. Its annual summer exhibition, which runs from May to October, is the result of a collaboration between the museum’s staff and two Colby students under the supervision of Prof. Véronique Plesch. The exhibition’s opening reception will occur on May 7th, 2022 from 4-6 pm at the museum.

Print

F&C Calendar Zine

As part of the Freedom & Captivity initiative, we are pleased to publish this calendar zine, featuring many of the events and exhibitions occurring across Maine this fall. Designed by Carolyn Wachnicki.