“Life in Prison: Artists Bear Witness”
Thursday, November 13, 2014 – 6:00pm – 8:00pm
MIST Harlem – 46 W 116th St, New York, NY 10026
The Institute for Research in African-American Studies (IRAAS) at Columbia University and OF NOTE, the award-winning arts & activism magazine, hosts a conversation with three dynamic artists who use their creative voice to examine the complex experiences, both personal and political, faced by the two million men, women, and youth currently imprisoned in the United States. Via theatre, photography, and video, these artists, Samara Gaev, Russell Frederick, and Lori Waselchuk illuminate the ways in which our society treats those within our prison systems with compelling work that engages and troubles our notions of ‘justice.’
Panelists:
Grace Aneiza Ali is founder and editorial director of OF NOTE Magazine , one of the first online magazines focused on global artists using the arts as catalysts for activism and social change. In 2014, she received the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Curatorial Fellowship in partnership with Aljira, A Center for Contemporary Art for the upcoming exhibition, “Guyana Modern,” which will feature a new generation of photographers from Guyana and its major diasporic communities in New York, London and Toronto. She’s an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at The City College of New York, CUNY and the recipient of the “Outstanding Faculty of the Year” award for 2013-2014. Grace is also World Economic Forum Global Shaper and a Fulbright Scholar.
Russell Frederick is a self-taught Brooklyn-born photographer of Panamanian heritage. He is the recipient of grants from the Open Society Foundation, New York Foundation of the Arts, Brooklyn Arts Council and the Urban Artist Initiative Foundation. Frederick is a member of the African-American photo collective Kamoinge and is represented by KEYSTONE photo agency in Switzerland. As an educator, he dedicates time to mentoring at-risk young men with the Kings Against Violence Initiative as the Men’s Program Director.
Samara Gaev is the founder and artistic director of Truthworker Theatre Company, a social justice based hip-hop theatre company for high school and college-aged youth in NYC. Its recent original productions include “BAR CODE,” a performative analysis of the school to prison pipeline, and “IN|PRISM: Boxed In & Blacked Out in America,” which examines the practice of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons.
Lori Waselchuk, is a Philadelphia-based visual storyteller. Her award-winning photographic documentary “Grace Before Dying,” which chronicles the prisoner-run hospice program at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, in Angola, LA, aims to challenge stereotypes about people that are imprisoned and offers a compassionate perspective into an environment designed to isolate and punish.
Moderator:
Samuel K. Roberts , Columbia University. Director, Institute for Research in African American Studies, and Associate Professor of History & Sociomedical Sciences.
Prison Photography 
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