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Reimagining a just future in Long Island City

MoMA PS1 will display artworks that challenge preconceptions and imagine a brighter tomorrow through March 24.

Located in the Long Island City museum’s Homeroom space, “The Fortune Society: Future Freedoms” showcases art forms from self-portraits to a music video that reflect on life after incarceration and visions for the future. It is free to all New Yorkers.

The exhibition is the result of a four-year collaboration between MoMA PS1 and The Fortune Society, an LIC-based nonprofit that supports successful reentry into society for people affected by the justice system.

Participants also collaborated with artists Jenny Polak and Laura Cer—n Melo as part of the Creatives Rebuild New York Initiative.

The Fortune Society’s director of creative arts, Jamie Maleszka-Tate, said transformation, renewal and reclamation are central themes of the exhibition, particularly following the trauma of incarceration.

Maleszka-Tate emphasized prison labor as a key concept for visitors to understand, especially in contrast to the project’s beauty, community and joy. Incarcerated people do not have a right to refuse to work, she said, often earning no more than a dollar per hour to produce billions of dollars worth of goods and services.

“The artists are reorienting themselves within themselves and the larger community. It’s a way to shed and to let go of some of the trauma and experiences and joys and challenges … and open up space for healing and processing,” she said.

Curator Elena Ketelsen González said the array of art forms in the exhibition shows the breadth of Fortune members’ practices.

Among the works on display are healing garments. Artists created several different clothing styles, including a coat of many colors and puffer pants by Isis Richardson.

Ketelsen González said the fashion designs are both literally and conceptually strong, featuring carefully sewn garments stuffed with shredded court documents such as summonses and housing applications.

“There’s this process of letting go, of shedding these things that do not serve us anymore,” she said.

Richardson decorated Nike sneakers in the style of a deconstructed ransom note, with intentionally selected words from magazine shreddings and foreign currency.

The exhibit includes a billboard the artists crafted to imagine a future freedom outside the prison system.

Mario Finesse Wright, The Fortune Society’s creative arts coordinator, produced and performed in a music video.

Originally from East Orange, NJ, Wright said his upbringing and experiences in a low-income neighborhood eventually drew him to art.

“In my childhood, art wasn’t presented to me. Just watching the things that surround you mislead you to other things,” he said, adding that art helped him forge a new path with new opportunities.

By sharing their experiences with visitors through art, he said, the participating artists became teachers.

“People come from all over. I think that is important to help reconstruct the systems in place that have become an issue in our society,” Wright said.

Richardson said the project prompted her to think outside the box in her own practice, adding that it was “enlightening” to collaborate with other artists.

“We really got to learn a lot about each other and I don’t know if that’s going to show in the actual exhibit itself, the things that went on behind the scenes. Just us encouraging each other,” she said.

“We believe in the restorative and transformative capacities of art, of the process of art-making and radical joy. That gorgeous recipe is vital to building community within Fortune and beyond,” Maleszka-Tate said.

Richardson and Wright hope the exhibit helps to reduce the stigma surrounding formerly incarcerated people.

“People have their views on America’s prison system and people that get locked up,” Wright said. “Our side of the story is missing a lot of times, so to be able to give that through art, I think that’s very important.”

“We’re still human and we make mistakes, but we can grow from them and we can use that to help us in the future,” Richardson said.

Read more at Queens Chronicle Back

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