Reclaiming Our Roots: Cultural Reflections by Incarcerated Artists

About the Exhibit

Reclaiming Our Roots: Cultural Reflections by Incarcerated Artists highlights the importance and beauty of connecting with one’s culture while incarcerated. Several of the featured artists are members and leaders of cultural awareness groups designed to educate BIPOC prisoners about their cultural identities and promote personal growth and community building. In recent years, policy changes within the Washington State Department of Corrections have severely limited free cultural expression by disallowing peer-led programming and censoring cultural groups’ curricula, events, and activities. 

Having cultural spaces inside where prisoners can find belonging and collective community is a vital lifeline. It keeps them rooted in their identity instead of the labels placed on them by the system and forges invaluable connections with communities outside prison. Cultural art and expression are inextricably linked with cultural education and empowerment that transcends the confines of prison politics. Therefore, the practice of culture — for prisoners — is resistance just as much as it is restoration and liberation. 

Each of the participating artists identified regions and cultures from their ancestry, and staff at the Burke Museum helped them choose a corresponding item from the museum’s Heritage: Arts & Cultures collections. The selected items served as inspiration for the artists to create pieces paying homage to their roots. The featured artworks were inspired by items from Ivory Coast, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Samoa, Mexico, Philippines, and Cambodia, as well as the Echota Cherokee and Blackfeet Nation tribes. Some artists have selected culturally significant creations from past Solidarity Art Collective shows to display alongside their specially curated pieces. 

The exhibit will feature recorded commentary from artists about partnering with the Burke Museum and how the experience impacted their connection to the past. These artists have deep love for their history, their culture, and their people as a whole. There is no greater opportunity for them to express this than the one the Burke Museum has extended through this collaboration. This process of connecting with previously unknown parts of their history has already breathed new life into the movement for cultural preservation behind bars.