The Minnesota Department of Corrections touts itself as a safe, rehabilitative space. In reality, all prison systems continue to punish and isolate incarcerated people once they are locked up. True restorative justice is about repairing harm, building understanding and reclaiming dignity.
Enter SEEN, an online prison poetry and portrait platform by We Are All Criminals (WAAC).
"Mass incarceration is dependent upon the erasure and forgetting of the people caged inside prisons," says Emily Baxter, a former public defender and founder of WAAC. “Incarceration isolates people, making them easy to forget. Through SEEN, we are bringing people back into view, showing their complexity and humanity through art.”
Right now, you can experience SEEN in person at the Weisman Art Museum (WAM) in Minneapolis. In collaboration with WAM, Baxter paired seven incarcerated SEEN particpants with seven outside artists. Together, they have created an audio and visual experience, exploring issues of incarceration, isolation, and coming home.
Faces seen. Voices Heard. Humanity Recognized.
There is a short anecdote that goes, “One death is a tragedy, one million deaths is a statistic,” suggesting we become less empathetic as the number of people suffering increases. Baxter put it like this:
"If you know the one person, then the issue is real and complex and urgent. But if it's a number like 2.3 million incarcerated people, then that's just a statistic. Our minds don't operate in a way that allows us to see humanity in 2.3 million people."
But we can see the humanity in Sarith:
SEEN starts a new phase of my life. It restores my hope to remain part of the society. I tell myself that this is my second chance to do right, and if I want to be useful to others, I must be pure and honest with myself and my community.
We can see the humanity in Bino:
I am ecstatic for the exposure our talents may receive, it lengthens and electrifies the volume of our voices.
After all, no one should ever speak for a people when they have so much to say. Justice can never be satisfied through muzzled voices.
We can see the humanity in Von:
When you have the opportunity to tell your story in your own words, authentic and sincere, you give someone the opportunity to truly hear you, to truly see you. I came through these doors as a child, literally. I promise you, who I’ve grown to become is the man my mother dreamed I would be.
Visit the exhibit
SEEN at WAM is free and open to the public, running Tuesday through Saturday, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Weisman Art Museum, located at 333 E River Parkway, Minneapolis, MN 55455.
The exhibit is divided into two sections. One room focuses on the carceral experience, marked by sterile, gray spaces, while the other offers a more vibrant, welcoming atmosphere, emphasizing community and healing.
The transition between the two spaces reflects the difference between the isolation of incarceration and the restoration of human connection.
“When people see the faces and hear the stories of those impacted by incarceration, it becomes real,” Baxter says. “It forces us to rethink how we treat people in the system and how we can create pathways for change.”
As someone personally deeply connected to this work, I appreciate the amplifying of it in this space. I am also curious about some of the language and tone in the article relative to why what WAAC does is important. How we see and treat incarcerated people is a choice. Criminality is a construct. So the language of ‘exhibiting humanity’ and ‘humanizing’ is sensitive.
I think the emphasis is better placed on what kind of things take place that rob people of their humanity? What situations and circumstances are constructed and then internalized that create a desire to see people and their value only as a result of personal understanding and or experiences of them, vs staring from a place that…