Join Ithaka S+R and Tammy Ortiz as we introduce you to “Preserving Their Stories: Archiving Mass Incarceration.” In this National Endowment for the Humanities funded project, Ithaka S+R Justice Initiative’s team explored how creative works generated by incarcerated artists circulate beyond prison walls.

Join us for a webinar on January 16, 2025 at 2:30pm ET as we speak with experts in the field and learn more about their successes and struggles navigating the creation of their art, preservation and archival processes, and the complex policies regulating artistic expression inside our nation’s prisons.

Panelists

Cuong “Mike” Tran

Cuong “Mike” Tran is a self-taught artist working primarily with acrylics and found object sculptural work. His work emphasizes emotions through a hyper realism style. Through his art he hopes to raise the question, ‘How does one reconcile beauty with dysfunction?’

Mike has lived experience as a system impacted person. Through that experience he has been able to address his past traumas and find his value and sense of self. He now works as a substance abuse disorder counselor within the carceral system, providing trauma informed treatment for other system impacted people.

Mike lives a life of service and amends, including donating his art to raise funding for organizations bringing programs to carceral institutions. He also facilitates a program that addresses the childhood sexual abuse suffered by many system impacted people.

Hannah Whelan

Hannah Whelan (she/her) is the the Associate Director of Programs and Strategy at Texas After Violence Project (TAVP), which is a public memory archive that fosters deeper understandings of the impacts of state-sanctioned violence on families and communities. As an archivist and the daughter of a father who has been incarcerated for two decades, Hannah focuses her work on utilizing creative expression and collaborative archive-building to counter silencing and forced separation imposed by the state.

In addition to her work with TAVP, Hannah consults on various projects working with sensitive text-based and oral records released through litigation with the US government or through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Requests. Her most recent project involves working with the American Immigration Council to create a publicly accessible archive of records, testimonies, and first-person narratives that document the impact of the family separation policies implemented during the Trump Administration.

Wendy Jason

Wendy Jason is a social impact arts administrator and grassroots community organizer. She began her first long-term correspondence with a person in prison while she was still in high school. Her passion for supporting and creating new opportunities for incarcerated people has been with her ever since. She worked with system impacted people within the social services sector for nearly 30 years.

Wendy’s MA research focused on the role of the arts in restorative justice and she did field research while facilitating a creative writing group at a men’s detention center in Albuquerque. In 2011 she began managing the Prison Arts Coalition website, an online resource for people involved/interested in arts programming in carceral settings, and in 2019 she founded Justice Arts Coalition. She served as ED of JAC for almost 6 years, working with over 600 currently and formerly incarcerated artists across the country, launching exhibitions and numerous programs that connected them with communities outside, and cultivating a vast national network of artists and advocates outside of prison.

Wendy recently moved on from JAC and is starting a new chapter. Now based in Tulsa, OK, she continues to facilitate exhibition, sales, and collaboration opportunities for currently and formerly incarcerated artists and makes herself available to organizations and community groups needing guidance on developing arts programming that engages people in prison.