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Janie Paul on Incarcerated Artists, Creativity During Isolation

John Bone
Image by John Bone, Cell Scene,’ Graphite, 2010. Provided by Janie Paul, part of the Prison Creative Arts Project. 

Janie Paul, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor Emerita at the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan, is the senior curator and co-founder of the Annual Exhibitions of Art by Michigan Prisoners at the University of Michigan. 

In a recent article for The Conversation, What we can learn about isolation from prison artists, Paul writes about the ways in which incarcerated people make meaning through creative practice and art making.

To those of us living with stress and frustration during COVID-19 restrictions, these artists demonstrate how to develop an inner space of freedom – and how to live imaginatively and purposefully in a strange new world.

What we can learn about isolation from prison artists | The Conversation