ABSTRACT
NYC Art Museums Outside In was a six-week workshop series offered in Spring 2017 at the Rose M. Singer Center on Rikers Island. The workshops, facilitated by two graduate students working with the Justice-in-Education (JIE) Initiative at Columbia University, invited educators from six art museums in New York City to visit the facility for one-day presentations. The series was one among a variety of arts workshops offered by JIE that seek to empower incarcerated young adult women at Rikers, as well as to transform educators and sympathizers into activists of the decarceration movement. The workshops offered artistic experiences that affirm the young women’s identities, allowing them to tell their stories and fuel their creativity. For the museum educators, the workshops disrupted stereotypes about incarcerated people and affirmed the necessity for jail education programs. Educators become ambassadors for changing the public conversation about mass incarceration, reintegration, and ultimately envisioning a society where incarceration is obsolete.
