NEW ORLEANS, LA.- Newcomb Art Museum of Tulane University is presenting the exhibition Per(Sister): Incarcerated Women in Louisiana. On view through July 6, 2019, this breakthrough exhibition explores one of the most critical issues facing our nation today through the lens of a population too often overlooked.

According to the Prison Policy Initiative, nationwide, women’s state prison populations have grown 834% over the past forty years — with Louisiana currently having the nineteenth-highest rate of incarcerated women in the world. Per(Sister) aims to look beyond the statistics and put a face, a name, and a story to a dehumanizing number. The exhibition presents works from more than thirty artists across America (including New Orleans’ own MaPó Kinnord, Lee Diegaard, L. Kasimu Harris, Devin Reynolds, Jackie Sumell, Carl Joe Williams, and Cherice Harrison-Nelson, among others) who created new pieces based on the diverse stories of thirty formerly and currently incarcerated women (persisters) as interviewed by museum staff in partnership with consultants Syrita Steib-Martin and Dolfinette Martin, and the support of organizations such as Operation Restoration and Women with a Vision, Inc.

Per(Sister) seeks to educate and build awareness of the crucial situations arising before, during, and after incarceration. Stories of loss, hope, despair, survival, triumph, and persistence are shared in a variety of forms demonstrating simultaneously the universal struggles faced by communities impacted by incarceration and the personal resiliency of each woman featured. The exhibition is divided into four sections that explore the root causes of female incarceration, the impact of incarcerating mothers, the physical and behavioral toll of incarceration, and the challenges and opportunities for reentry for formerly incarcerated women. These four themes bring together more than thirty works–including voice recordings, photographic portraits, informative illustrations, sculptures, paintings, songs, and performances–and serve as an entry point into each woman’s story, creating a cohesive exhibition that incorporates the voices of the persisters and creatives alike while highlighting powerful statistics collected from the Vera Institute of Justice, Prison Policy Initiative, The Sentencing Project, the Bureau of Justice Statistics and more.

What are those statistics?
Among the data emphasized in the exhibition are the percentage of incarcerated women who are mothers (80%), who struggle with mental health problems (67%), who are victims of abuse (86%), and who are in jail for non-violent offenses (86%), all which underline the notion that jails and prisons have become mass containers for struggling communities. These statistics are humanized by the stories and voices of the women as seen in text and heard in audio.

Intended as a way to challenge misconceptions and uninformed assumptions, Per(Sister) aims to use art as a safe vehicle for communicating the myriad issues as identified and expressed by the women. By providing a multitude of access points to the stories of incarcerated women, including a participatory garden constructed by artist Jackie Sumell among other interactive elements, the exhibition invites everyone to engage with the show and find common ground.

“For a museum looking to address social justice issues through the lens of the arts as Newcomb does, and being aware of Louisiana’s recent reputation as the ‘incarceration capital of the world,’ it seems only reasonable to look into the prison industrial complex given that it is one of the most critical aspects affecting our immediate communities,” said museum director Monica Ramirez-Montagut. “The objective of this art exhibition is to informally educate our students and museum visitors on the issues that have made our state infamous and address the tremendous lack of awareness and basic knowledge on the human experience of the justice system.”

“I want for everyone who comes to the exhibit to see us through the art and to understand what brought us here. We don’t look for excuses, we just need you to understand – that I’m just like them. I’m a human being and my crime isn’t who I am. It doesn’t even begin to explain who I am,” said Dolfinette Martin, Per(Sister) and Operations Manager at Operation Restoration. “People need to know that one: women are in prison, two: we’re not there because we want to be there, and three: every woman or girl that goes to prison has trauma... We’re human, and we’re survivors.”

“It’s important that this show is focusing on women,” said Syrita Steib-Martin, Per(Sister) and Co-Executive Director of Operation Restoration, “because the role of a woman is not to just take care of everybody else. She has to first take care of herself, be her best self, and then she’s highly functioning, and able to take care of everybody else. But if we never focus on just the woman, her as an individual, the problem is never solved. I find that a lot of times, women are often pushed to the wayside for every other entity that exists outside of themselves. Women make the world go ‘round, women raise children, women change hearts, souls and minds with compassion and being caregivers. But nobody ever deals with them in that same manner. So that’s why we’re very intentional about focusing on the woman and what she needs. Because, it’s so complex when it comes to women. Women are not individuals who are easily peeled back. The depths of trauma that women go through and just don’t ever speak about it– it’s amazing, it’s crazy... Women are raising kids and if you don’t find a way to remove that energy, or remove those issues or problems, they’re just going to pass it on. Not intentionally, but because they don’t know what else to do but pass it on. And then we find ourselves in a world where we exist today, where there’s all kinds of things happening, and we don’t know how to stop it, or how to combat it, how to fix it. But I think it just starts with fixing women, you know, if you fix women, women will fix the world.”

“To be a Persister in a world where you are met daily with a multitude of oppressions – specifically the systemic oppression that Black and Brown, trans and queer, women face – that intersect and hinder a formerly incarcerated woman’s ability to live – means that you are a survivor. The women who enter the doors at Women With A Vision as clients are fighters, battling for the lives of community members, children, and most importantly themselves. Their voices are critical to building any movements for justice in our city,” said Lakeesha Harris, Director of Reproductive Justice at Women With A Vision, Inc.