THE SKY’S FURY MIRRORS MINE

Art & the Archive of Indeterminate Release

Al-Shariyfa Robinson
George “Serious Soul Brother” Smith
Remy Trail
Leonard Wilson
Manani Olivares
Pamela Smart
Tzaddik Donte Lysetto
Zarah Coombs

On view: Friday, November 15 - Sunday, December 15, 2024
Opening reception: Friday, November 15th: 6pm - 8pm
*masks required inside gallery*

Additional Public Events
December 4, 6:30pm: A Stamp Costs 5 Hours: Panel Discussion on Compensation &
Incarcerated Creative/Cultural Labor with participating organizations Empowerment Avenue,
W.A.G.E., Freelance Solidarity Project and Archive-Based Creative Arts

Change is Possible, Remy Trail, ballpoint pen on purple cardstock with deposition form in a modified police file, 2023.

Essex Flowers is thrilled to announce The Sky’s Fury Matches Mine; Art & the Archive of Indeterminate Release, an exhibition of works by members of the Archive-Based Creative Arts Collective, organized by Willie Kearse and Tyler Morse of the Parole Preparation Project.

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In the second half of the 19th century, prison administrators, reformers and the like developed three policies that are still with us today: indeterminate sentencing, conditional release, and post-release supervision, also known as parole. With those policies, prison time became elastic, reaching beyond the bounds of the penitentiary, leaching into society with the perpetual threat of calling the released back. They stretched within captivity as well, via sentences that could expand or contract depending on what the system deemed a person’s “readiness for release.” Today, one in every three people imprisoned in New York State is serving an indeterminate life sentence; New York is in the top 10 of life-sentence incarceration rates in the nation.

In the wake of these policies, the carceral archive proliferated further. The carceral archive is what the prison produces and what reproduces the prison – mugshots, crime blotter app feeds, sentencing minutes, disciplinary tickets, medical files, mandatory program worksheets, psych evaluations, case plans, parole transcripts, post-release supervision logs; it’s the erasure “embedded in black / and white of my Attorney letter,” per poet Zarah Coombs. It’s the public record that obscures the life within a life sentence.

Through intuitive drawing, archival mixed media, visual expression and poetry, the artists of The Sky’s Fury Mirrors Mine confront the legacy of a system fundamentally at odd with freedom, responsible for delivering people into it. Refusing the given notion that their stories are meant to be told by another, these artists engage personal and carceral archive to grapple with themes of transformation, violence, motherhood, aging, love, transition and time’s passage, on their own terms. Collectively, the works produce a new history of the carceral present, as told through an array of singular visual and poetic voices.

Access to this resistant archive is never promised. The NYS Department of Community & Corrections’ plain efforts to suppress artistic and journalistic expression of the experience of incarceration (as evidenced by their attempt to ban all non-approved creative programming and creative production in 2023, a policy successfully fought down by a coalition of incarcerated activists and advocacy groups) indicates the uphill fight to preserve our counternarratives. Through their work, the artists of the Sky’s Fury Mirrors Mine offer us the stakes of this struggle.

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Archive-Based Creative Arts is a workshop, publishing platform and loose collective of artists operating across the wall, housed within the Parole Preparation Project.
paroleprepny.org/arts

Co-Organizer Tyler Morse has participated in fellowships/residencies and/or facilitated workshops with the New York State Archives, Mt. Lebanon Residency, The Kitchen NYC, Wendy’s Subway and The Poetry Project. She co-operates Come Forever Garage, a brick-and-mortar mutual aid distro hub in Los Sures, Williamsburg. In 2022, she co-founded Archive-Based Creative Arts with Willie Kearse, developing a program in collaboration with incarcerated artists and writers to publish work, preserve personal archives and engage in unorthodox archiva exploration. She works at the Parole Preparation Project, and has been a volunteer with the organization since 2014.

Co-Organizer Willie Kearse is a 2021 published author for The Harbinger N.Y.U. Review of Law & Social Change (“How Grappling with Racism and Capitalism Led Me to Organizing, Advocacy, and Legal Work Inside”) and a 2021 Bard graduate. He is a poet, archivist, abolitionist and mentor, as well as an advocate for change within the realms of public health, public education, and criminal justice. With initial two-year funding from Creatives Rebuild New York, he co-founded Archive-Based Creative Arts, an art workshop and program at the Parole Preparation Project. Through this program he works directly with artists and writers in prisons upstate, aiming to provide incarcerated people with resources to network, paid labor opportunities, and connections to artists who share similar interests.

To make a tax deductible contribution or become an ABCA monthly sustainer, select “Art
Programming (ABCA)” from the options here: paroleprepny.org/donate

Accessibility Notes
Masks are required in the gallery. Essex Flowers' front entrance and front gallery are wheelchair accessible; our back gallery is accessible through a side entrance (to access, speak with the gallery sitter upon arrival). The gallery bathroom is not wheelchair accessible; wheelchair accessible bathrooms are available nearby Alfred E. Smith Park (4 min away; open daytime) and at Luna Pizza (7 min away; open evening).