About the Project
Tea Project
Aaron Hughes and Amber Ginsburg collaborate on the Tea Project to create spaces for people to engage with the history and contemporary reality of extralegal detention and torture with specific attention to the Global War on Terror and Guantánamo Detention Camp.
An important point that emerges from this work is the profound connection between Guantánamo and the legacy of torture and extralegal detention in Chicago. This history, rooted in racism of American exceptionalism, draws the connection between the military and prison industrial complexes, between mass incarceration and endless war.
Through the Envisioning Justice grant Hughes and Ginsburg will create a podcast and visual resources that trace these relationships while highlighting the struggle for restorative justice and reparations. The body of work is intended to function as a resource for the movements working towards abolition.
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About the Humanists
Aaron Hughes
Aaron Hughes is a Chicago-based artist, curator, organizer, teacher, anti-war activist, and Iraq War veteran. He works collaboratively in diverse spaces and media to create meaning out of personal and collective trauma, deconstruct and transform systems of oppression, and seek liberation.
Working through an interdisciplinary practice rooted in drawing and printmaking, Hughes develops projects that deconstruct militarism and related institutions of dehumanization.
Since 2009, Ginsburg and Hughes have collaborated on the Tea Project.
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Amber Ginsburg
Amber Ginsburg is a Chicago-based artist teaching at the University of Chicago. She creates site-generated projects and social sculptures that insert historical scenarios into present-day situations, as well as engage present day histories to imagine alternative futures.
Amber often works with long-term and ongoing collaborators and together they engage multiple communities and elicit working relationships with experts in the fields of biology, political activism, legal scholarship and activism, and science fiction.
Since 2009, Ginsburg and Hughes have collaborated on the Tea Project.
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About Illinois Humanities' Envisioning Justice program
Envisioning Justice brings Illinois together to examine and reimagine the criminal legal system through the arts and humanities.
Envisioning Justice leverages the arts and humanities to envision alternatives to the enduring injustice of mass incarceration. This Illinois Humanities initiative works with communities and people impacted by mass incarceration to spark conversation and illuminate community-based strategies that address our racist and unjust criminal legal system.
From 2017 to 2019, Envisioning Justice was concentrated in Chicago. Moving forward, Illinois Humanities is expanding this initiative and its attendant activities throughout the state. As a part of this next phase of Envisioning Justice, we will host and document community conversations, provide grant opportunities, and commission projects by artists and humanists working to shift the narrative around incarceration and system impacted communities.
Learn more about the Envisioning Justice program, including upcoming events and grant offerings.
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