Whose experiences are left out of the conversation about mass incarceration? How do we address topics of oppression, confinement, and racial and political violence in the United States? Artist James “Yaya” Hough and members of Let’s Get Free: The Women and Trans Prisoner Defense Committee discuss using art as an organizing and educational tool to shift cultural understandings around harm, healing, justice, and abolition.
James “Yaya” Hough has been heavily involved for more than a decade with Mural Arts Philadelphia, creating more than 50 works that have been installed at the State Correctional Institution–Graterford and the State Correctional Institution–Phoenix. In 2019, as part of a program supported by the Art for Justice Fund and Fair and Just Prosecution, Hough was selected to be the inaugural artist-in-residence at the Office of the District Attorney of Philadelphia.
Let’s Get Free: The Women and Trans Prisoner Defense Committee (founded 2013, Pittsburgh, PA) is a group working to end perpetual punishment, build a pathway out of the prisons back to our communities through commutation reform, support successful possibilities for people formerly and currently incarcerated, and shift to a culture of transformative justice. The group was formed when Avis Lee, Charmaine Pfender, Donna Hill, and etta cetera all participated in One Billion Rising, a global day of action to end violence against women.