We Want Political Posters That Work! Critique and Discussion!

Laurie Jo Reynolds — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 20:49:09 -0600

Event Type:

Other Event

Saturday, February 7, 2009 6:30pm - 9:00pm

WE WANT POLITICAL POSTERS THAT WORK!

Poster Critique + Discussion of Visual Strategies for Resisting the Prison Industrial Complex

with Dan S. Wang & Laurie Jo Reynolds

Tamms Year Ten is hosting an open discussion of the prints in the Justseeds poster portfolio--each which critiques the "prison industrial complex." Let's talk about which images are effective for you--and use this as a basis for considering the visual and rhetorical strategies in the movement.

We want to learn from the decisions made by these artists, and then we want to work with you to consider the very real representational problems we face as a movement!

1. How do we depict the experience of long-term isolation? Or communicate the experience of long-term incarceration?

2. What visual language will help us to imagine the abolition of
prisons? To urge rehabilitation over punishment?

3. Do commonly used motifs—fists through prison bars; broken chains; doves; barbed wire; guard towers; slave ships; prison stripes—still work? Are new metaphors required?

We'll be talking about prison-related issues, but we hope that this event will be of interest to all artist-activists bedeviled and/or charmed by the problem of producing movement art which translates our political passions into visual form, renders visible the (often unacknowledged) problems of the present, and/or serves as an irresistible invitation to join us in our efforts to get free.

We also invite you to bring other anti-prison movement ephemera (e.g. t-shirts, posters, etc) for discussion!

Contact Email:

URL:

http://www.yearten.org

Presenter

Tamms Year Ten

URL:

http://www.yearten.org

Organization Main Email:

lreyno@artic.edu

Contact Information:

2840 N Francisco
Chicago, IL 60618
Google Map

Organization Description:

Tamms Year Ten is a coalition of prisoners, ex-prisoners, families, artists, attorneys and other concerned citizens who have come together to protest the misguided and inhumane policies at Tamms supermax prison in Southern Illinois, and to call for an end to psychological torture. We have initiated a program of cultural, educational and political events to publicize Tamms after ten years of operation. This February, we are introducing a Tamms supermax reform bill sponsored by Rep. Julie Hamos. We need your support to pass it!

Event Location

Venue:

Mess Hall

Address:

6932 North Glenwood Avenue
Chicago, IL 60626
Google Map

Neighborhood:

Rogers Park

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