Incarcerated Mothers Art Exhibit: Guided Tour and Discussion for Mentors

From November 9-20, a compelling art exhibit focused on the reality of life for incarcerated mothers and their families will be showing at the UVM Davis Center. As distant from our own lives as incarceration might feel, in reality well over 20% of Community Friends’ mentees have been impacted in some way by the criminal justice system. Join us on Monday, November 16, from 6:30-8:30 pm for a guided tour and discussion of the exhibit.

The exhibition, entitled “Interrupted Life: Incarcerated Mothers in the United States”, seeks to make visible the invisible world of the US prison system—specifically through the eyes of mothers and parents in jail. It also sheds light on life for the children of those incarcerated, who are undeniably affected by their parent’s sentence. According to “The Sentencing Project”, in 2007, “One in 43 American children had a parent incarcerated in a state or federal prison—representing an 82% increase since 1991.”[1] These statistics give us a moment of pause as we consider what it might have been like to grow up without one or more of our own parents.

“Interrupted Life” has been on a traveling tour since 2006, and is led by exhibit curator, historian and prize winning author Rickie Solinger. The show features a diverse array of artwork by incarcerated mothers and their children, as well as professional artists’ paintings, cartoons, and collages. Solinger says of the exhibition, “With this show, I am expressing my hope (and intermittent faith) in democracy. I am using art together with scholarship to enrich opportunities for public and institutional education.”[2]

Please join us at the UVM Davis Center for an evening showing of this exhibition, on Monday, November 16, from 6:30-8:30 pm. We will be given a guided tour of the show and then have time for discussion afterwards. Find a posting of the event on our CFM Facebook page, and general info at the Interrupted Life Facebook page. And, if you’re interested in learning more about the effects of incarceration on children and families, visit “The Real Cost of Prisons Project”.

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