HAMILTON — Multiple artistic endeavors come together on display and in performance at the Fitton Center for Creative Arts this month.
“We are looking to push artistic and social boundaries here at the Fitton Center. This is a new and very challenging evening for us, both in terms of what we’re putting on our gallery walls, and on our stage. We are embarking on something new, yet challenging, which we are really excited about as an arts center,” said Ian MacKenzie-Thurley, executive director of the Fitton Center.
These challenging, progressive and socially engaging endeavors already have statewide and national support and can take Hamilton to new artistic and partnership levels, he said.
“We are bringing new artists, new ideas, new performance and new ways of approach to the galleries and to the theater, which we’re really delighted about,” MacKenzie-Thurley said.
“Home Free: Ohio Artists Envision Prison Abolition,” running concurrently with Maureen O’Keefe’s “Being Good,” will have a gallery opening celebration from 5:30-7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 28. The event is free and open to the public. Both exhibitions aim to question societal norms and expectations.
“Home Free” presents a diverse array of art made by people imprisoned as a challenge to the public’s view of the worth and contributions of people who have been criminalized. “Being Good” offers portraits of individuals layered in mystery, shadow, and ambivalence. Together, the artists present complex views on societal notions of goodness and the intrinsic value of every individual. The exhibitions will display through Jan. 5.
The “Home Free” exhibition is the result of a partnership between the Fitton Center, Marking Time and the Returning Artists Guild.
“I always like to say Hamilton punches above its weight. We are an incredible city. We are about 63,000 people in this city, but we do remarkable things, and so do the people from this city, who grew up here, and have gone on to do amazing things,” MacKenzie-Thurley said.
Dr. Nicole Fleetwood, a New York University professor, acclaimed author of “Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration,” MacArthur Fellowship recipient and co-curator of the “Home Free: Ohio Artists Envision Prison Abolition” art exhibition will join co-curator Aimee Wissman and Kamisha Thomas of the Returning Artists Guild to present dramatic visual art by currently and formerly incarcerated artists living in Ohio.
Fleetwood, a 1990 graduate of Hamilton High School, grew up about half a mile from the Fitton Center site in the 2nd Ward neighborhood now known as Riverview.
“Growing up in the late 1980s, I saw many of my relatives, neighbors and kids I went to school with incarcerated,” said Nicole Fleetwood. “I saw how devastating that experience was, not only for the people incarcerated, but also for the families and friends of those people. It really struck me as a high school student, and it stayed with me as an adult.”
Fleetwood’s “Marking Time” book became a traveling art exhibition that received rave reviews at prestigious venues like New York’s MoMA PS1 and the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati. With it, she hopes to shine a light on communities in crisis because of mass incarceration.
“Home Free” is not a “Marking Time” exhibition, but it is related. Like “Marking Time,” Fleetwood hopes “Home Free” pushes viewers to think critically about the issue of mass incarceration.
“I want viewers to be wowed by the artwork, by what they see and experience,” she said. “And I want them to leave with a sense of urgency for how we can address the issues of incarceration. We have to work together collaboratively to transform these social, economic, and political issues,” Fleetwood said.
Aimee Wissman, artist, co-founder of Returning Artists Guild with Kamisha Thomas, and co-curator of “Home Free: Ohio Artists Envision Prison Abolition” said she first connected with Fleetwood as an artist in the “Marking Time” exhibition. Wissman is a graduate of Lakota West High School.
“The Fitton Center folks came down to see ‘Marking Time’ at the Freedom Center, and that’s where the conversation really got started. ‘Marking Time’ does a great job of highlighting artists on a national level that are doing the work of talking about mass incarceration and sharing their own lived experience. So, it felt important for them to uplift the work that we’re doing here in Ohio, because we’re doing a similar thing on a much more local level,” Wissman said.
Exhibitions like this are vital because they are a starting point to talk about some of the important issues or begin a dialogue about mass incarceration, and prison abolition. Some of these topics are still taboo to talk about, so an exhibition like this also provides a connection and offers healing, she said.
“Home Free is a homecoming for both of us, which is an idea that Ian MacKenzie-Thurley was excited about. For me, the idea of homecoming is a little trickier when we’re talking about the fact that some people that won’t get to come home or have to do a very long time before they have that same kind of opportunity, so it’s a little bittersweet,” Wissman said.
Artists, who are part of the exhibition are experts when it comes to what’s going on Ohio’s prison system. They see firsthand what’s working, or not working. Many of the artists are also on the forefront of imaging solutions to social problems, like addiction, which aren’t incarceration, she said.
“If we are going to talk about home in any context, we should also talk about abolition, which maybe people in Ohio aren’t familiar with the idea of abolition, or maybe don’t understand why people think that would be a solution,” Wissman said.
“Home Free” has a good scope of different artists, material choices and reasons for that as well as a variety of narratives in each artist’s work. Sixteen artists are part of the “Home Free” exhibition, and there are 78 works in the show. The pieces incorporate diverse mediums from ink and sculptures to woodworking, fiber art and more.
“For every one that is critiquing or showing something that’s a little hard for people to swallow, there’s someone else who has taken that same kind of pain source and transformed it into an object of beauty. There’s a lot of beauty in the show, and there’s a lot of pain. It’s a really nice balance. It helps people remember the humanity,” Wissman said.
Regular gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Fridays. Also, galleries are open evening hours during Fitton Center events and performances.
Adding to the Saturday event is “Home Spun,” featuring DJ Arie, Healing Broken Circles and Hanif Abdurraqib. At 7:30 p.m. Saturday, DJ Arie will lay down the beats and pump up the crowd for this multi-media event with hip-hop, rap, dance, spoken word and visual art, including performers from The Backwall, Transit Arts in Columbus and acclaimed poet Hanif Abdurraqib.
More details
fittoncenter.org
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