This course looks at visual art made under the conditions of confinement and imprisonment, principally in the context of the criminal justice system. Prisons have become dynamic sites of artistic activity, with incarcerated artists engaged in drawing, painting, 3D construction, and tattoo designs, imaginatively using materials that are readily available. We will explore the relationship between the restrictive conditions of incarceration, on the one hand, and the expression of creativity and a visual imaginary, a "carceral aesthetic," and the socio-economic and cultural dimensions of prison art within and outside of carceral institutions, on the other hand. While the focus will be on mass incarceration within the United States, there will also be a historical and cross-cultural consideration of other contexts in which visual art has been produced by enclosed populations within institutions of confinement (like early modern European nunneries and plague hospitals, and modern internment camps). Course materials will include videos and selections from Nicole Fleetwood's Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration (2020) and Janie Paul's Making Art in Prison: Survival and Resistance (2023).

A critical component of this seminar will be involvement in the University of Michigan Prison Creative Arts Project (PCAP). Students will facilitate weekly PCAP Visual Arts Workshops for participants in two Michigan state prisons and a re-entry program. Tuesday classes will be dedicated to Workshop planning and Thursday classes to discussions about the readings and videos, and guest presentations. Students will also engage with the annual PCAP Exhibition of Art by Michigan Prisoners. Enrolled students will be required to register for the PCAP workshop facilitator training in early January.

HISTART Concentration Distributions: Modern and Contemporary, Europe and US