Making Art in Prison: Survival and Resistance by Janie Paul

The United States is the most incarcerating nation in the world. Over two million people are locked behind bars, where they endure the degradation and violence of a dehumanizing system. But in prisons around the country, incarcerated people have regained their dignity by creating objects of beauty, meaning, and value.  In Making Art in Prison: Survival and Resistance, Janie Paul introduces readers to the culture and aesthetics of prison art communities, and shares heart wrenching, poignant, and often surprisingly humorous artists’ narratives. These powerful stories and images upend the manufactured stereotypes of those living in prison, imparting a real human dimension—a critical step in the movement to end mass incarceration.   For 27 years, Paul has traveled throughout Michigan to meet artists and select work for the project she co-founded: The Annual Exhibitions of Artists in Michigan Prisons, an initiative of the Prison Creative Arts Project at the University of Michigan. Pedagogic