Past Event

Inside & Out: The Arts, Humanities, and Re-Entry

Illinois Humanities partners with WTTW to host a short screening, compelling conversation, and meaningful meal. Inside & Out: The Arts, Humanities, and Re-entry asks: how can the humanities and the arts be tools for healing, for pursuing freedom, for building a livelihood, and for staying connected throughout incarceration and re-entry?

This conversation is connected with FIRSTHAND: Life After Prison, a year-long WTTW initiative offering an intimate look at the challenges and opportunities facing people returning to society after spending time in prison. The series follows them as they seek to restart their lives while carrying the stigma of a criminal record.

Panelists Denzel Burke, Nicholas Crayton, Michael Fischer, and Faylita Hicks discuss how they developed their own unique practices, from poetry to pedagogy, all while resisting the dehumanizing impacts of the criminal legal system. Following the panel discussion, attendees including artists, creators, educators, organizers, and policymakers will enjoy a delicious meal from Parson’s Chicken & Fish.

This program is created to illuminate, inform, and cultivate relationships, collaborations, and visions around the power of the arts and humanities to resist and transcend barriers, especially those imposed by the carceral state.

*This is an invitation-only event. If you would like to be added to the invitation list, please email jane.beachy@ilhumanities.org.

More on the panelists: