Free on the inside
#CreativeUplift: Arts in Corrections makes space for creativity and connection through the human condition
In 2020, amid a worldwide pandemic, social distancing, and civil unrest and uncertainty, art’s unique ability to build hope and to heal has reached unprecedented levels of importance, while our access to it is simultaneously and similarly challenged.
And perhaps no other community feels the strain of this dichotomy more than our fellow human beings experiencing incarceration inside our state’s prison system.
Since 2013, the California Arts Council has administered Arts in Corrections, in partnership with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, as the nation’s only state-run prison arts program. Contracting with arts and cultural organizations across the state, our Arts in Corrections program offers arts workshops to participants inside each of California’s adult correctional institutions, with instruction in visual; literary; media; performing; and cultural, folk and traditional arts. The program seeks to dismantle the root causes of incarceration, reduce harm, and heal traumas by uplifting participants and their stories through a people-centered focus on creative expression.
With COVID-19 halting all in-person visitation, Arts in Corrections Coordinating Organizations channeled their innovative natures toward finding new ways to continue providing arts programming in spite of the moratorium on in-person classes, at a time when the need for human connection is great.
In a virtual conversation for the California Arts Council’s Creative Uplift series, facilitated by Arts in Corrections Manager Mariana Moscoso and Program Analyst Roman Sanchez, AIC Coordinating Organizations Associate Director Marlene McCurtis, of TheatreWorkers Project in Los Angeles; and Eli Wirschafter, of KALW’s Uncuffed podcast in San Francisco; together with former AIC participants Chanthon Bun and Louie Brash; discuss the impact of Arts in Corrections as a vehicle for growth, how the pandemic has shifted programming, and art as a leader and guide for change:
“These stories, people want to hear, people need to hear, so we can understand each other. And I see how my story affects my family, how it affects the guys around me, how it affects my community.”
— Chanthon Bun, past AIC participant
“I call myself an artist now. I didn’t have that before.”
— Louie Brash, past AIC participant
The California Arts Council expresses its sincerest gratitude for all who participated in this conversation — in particular to Bun and Louie as past program participants — whose shared knowledge and experience help to continually inform and improve this work for a better, more liberated future.
Learn more about California’s prison arts program at www.artsincorrections.org.
Creative Uplift is a California Arts Council series celebrating California’s arts and culture community. We invite you to follow along on social media as we share the inspirational work of our creative communities far and wide, using the hashtag #CreativeUplift. And we welcome each of you to share your own experiences of art as a source of change, compassion, comfort, healing, and unity in your own communities using the same hashtag.
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