Imagining Abolition: Blood, Sweat, and Tears brings together work by artists from the Returning Artists Guild exploring the emotional and creative labor of imagining a world beyond punishment and incarceration. Drawing from lived experience, the exhibition considers the weight of time and loss, resilience, and the relentless hope required to imagine freedom and systems rooted in care, accountability, and collective safety.
Presented at the Losinski Gallery at the Columbus Metropolitan Library’s Main Library, the exhibition was curated by Aimee Wissman and Kamisha Thomas, co-founders of the Returning Artists Guild.
Curatorial Statement
Artists from the Returning Artists Guild invite you to witness the emotional and creative labor of imagining a world beyond punishment and incarceration.
Imagining Abolition: Blood, Sweat, and Tears honors the artists whose work emerges from lived experience—from the weight of time and loss to the relentless hope required to dream of freedom. Each piece is a testament to the courage it takes to rebuild, to reimagine, and to create systems rooted in care, accountability, and collective safety.
This exhibition does not offer simple answers. Instead, it opens a space for reflection, contradiction, and imagination. The artists in this show are not calling for chaos—they’re calling for transformation.
Join us as we honor their resilience and creative power.
—Aimee Wissman and Kamisha Thomas, Co-Founders, the Returning Artists Guild
This is a RAG-hosted event.
