Imagining Abolition: Reset: Started from the Bottom, Now We're Here was a Returning Artists Guild exhibition presented at The Vanderelli Room in Columbus in July 2023. Featuring work by more than 30 currently and formerly incarcerated Ohio artists, the exhibition explored creativity as a means of expression, healing and imagining a world beyond incarceration.
The exhibition brought together visual art with live painting, performances, film screenings and a prison-themed microwave bar, creating an experience that invited audiences to do more than simply observe the work.
Imagining Abolition: Reset centered the perspectives of artists who experienced incarceration firsthand, including expressions of anger, pain, vulnerability and resilience. The exhibition reflects the RAG’s belief in art as a way to confront assumptions about incarceration, amplify the voices of justice-impacted artists and create space to imagine something different.
This is a RAG-hosted event.