A powerful document of the inner lives and creative visions of men
and women rendered invisible by America’s prison system.
More than two
million people are currently behind bars in the United States.
Incarceration not only separates the imprisoned from their families
and communities; it also exposes them to shocking levels of
deprivation and abuse and subjects them to the arbitrary cruelties of
the criminal justice system. Yet, as Nicole Fleetwood reveals,
America’s prisons are filled with art. Despite the isolation and
degradation they experience, the incarcerated are driven to assert
their humanity in the face of a system that dehumanizes them.
Based on interviews
with currently and formerly incarcerated artists, prison visits, and
the author’s own family experiences with the penal system, Marking
Time shows how the imprisoned turn ordinary objects into
elaborate works of art. Working with meager supplies and in the
harshest conditions—including solitary confinement—these artists
find ways to resist the brutality and depravity that prisons
engender. The impact of their art, Fleetwood observes, can be felt
far beyond prison walls. Their bold works, many of which are being
published for the first time in this volume, have opened new
possibilities in American art.
As the movement to
transform the country’s criminal justice system grows, art provides
the imprisoned with a political voice. Their works testify to the
economic and racial injustices that underpin American punishment and
offer a new vision of freedom for the twenty-first century.