This project chronicles collaborative photographs created during a six-month-long correspondence with Prison + Neighborhood Arts/Education Project University Without Walls degree students and alumni at Stateville prison. Together, we considered the value and possibilities of photography as a tool of agency over one’s own image.
by Michael Bell
This portrait project began in May of 2021, when PNAP staff member and SAIC art history professor, Jason LaFountain, invited SAIC students, Ruth Poor and Helen Sanchez-Cortes, to create painted portraits of our current UWW degree students at Stateville prison. It is the first of a series of special projects Jason will organize as part of his work at PNAP.