UC Law symposium: Marking time - Art in the age of mass incarceration

The Nathaniel R. Jones Center for Race, Gender and Social Justice at the University of Cincinnati College of Law is partnering with the New York University Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development and the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center to put on a national symposium July 15-17 that looks at the impact of prison life through a focus on art and culture. Workshops for this symposium will be held in UC's Lindner College of Business meeting rooms due to renovations involving the College of Law.

Review the symposium schedule online.

The  Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration symposium is an ongoing initiative that aims to explore the reach and impact of prisons on everyday life through a focus on art and culture. The summer convening will be the first opportunity for Marking Time artists, collaborators, and supporters to gather since the pandemic. The panels, workshops, and events will also feature local artists and organizations that are committed to ending mass incarceration and transforming the criminal legal system.

On opening day of the symposium, a panel of Ohio artists will include Ohio Innocence Project Exonoree Dean Gillispie, He was freed from incarceration thanks to UC's Ohio Innocence Project in December 2011 after serving 20 years in prison for rapes he did not do. Learn more about Gillispie’s use of art to manage time during incarceration in a February 2021 edition of the Atlantic.  More about art from Gillispie and others impacted by incarceration was featured on a PBS broadcast as well.

Gillispie constructed a toaster-size trailer with a propane tank no bigger than your thumb during his incarceration. He spread cigarette-pack foil across notebook cardboard, and used pins taken from the prison sewing shop to hold the whole structure together. The window curtains, made from used tea bags, are partially closed. A tiny sign on the trailer door reads, in nearly microscopic ink script: 'Gone Fishing.'

Please register for the symposium online. 

Featured image of Dean Gillispie art.