What does freedom mean to you? What are the ways you practice freedom? Join us this Saturday, December 2nd to discuss abolition in this free artist-led workshop with award-winning Chicago-based artist Maria Gaspar.

Be ready to make art together by participating in Gaspar’s Disappearance Jail (2021-Ongoing), an archive the artist has been building of more than 300 images of jails, prisons, and detention centers across the US. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Gaspar started carefully perforating the images of Illinois’s facilities with a hole punch to remove the institutions. 

During this workshop, participants will be invited to “disappear” or “undo” the images of Californian carceral system facilities by perforating them. This is an opportunity to meet with Gaspar and her collaborators artist Christopher Coleman and Dr. Michael De Anda Muñiz.

An abolitionist punch with a recipe created by New Orleans-based artist jackie summel, and sourced directly from her Solitary Gardens, will be served. Come enjoy and participate in this unique collaborative work!

This workshop is free and open to the public but spots are limited. Please, RSVP below. No prior experience is required. All ages welcome with supervision. All backgrounds and abilities are welcome.

Maria Gaspar is a Chicago-born interdisciplinary artist whose practice addresses issues of spatial justice to amplify, mediate, or divert structures of power through individual and collective gestures. Gaspar is the recipient of Guggenheim Fellowship for the Creative Arts, Latinx Artist Fellowship, United States Artists Fellowship, Frieze Impact Prize, Art Matters Award, Imagining Justice Art Grant, Robert Rauschenberg Artist as Activist Fellowship, Joan Mitchell Emerging Artist Grant, and Creative Capital Award. Gaspar has exhibited at venues including MoMA PS1, New York, NY; the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX; and the Abroms-Engle Institute for the Visual Arts, Birmingham, AL. She is an Associate Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, holds an MFA in Studio Arts from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a BFA from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY.

Christopher Coleman is an artist and writer, as well as a father, grandfather, and community caretaker. He was a contributor to a major public art project, Radioactive: Stories from Beyond the Wall that took place while incarcerated at the Cook County Department of Corrections. He is working on a series of writings about justice and restoration. He is currently developing a performance for video project with artist Maria Gaspar.

Dr. Michael De Anda Muñiz (he/him) is an Assistant Professor in the Latina/Latino Studies Department at San Francisco State University. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2020. His research and teaching focuses on art and culture, Latina/x/o communities, community engagement, and knowledge production. Additionally, Dr. De Anda Muñiz has experience teaching inside jails and prisons, performing at community art spaces, galleries, and museums, and collaborating on public art projects. He has published on his research, teaching, and community work in various venues. He and members of the Policing in Chicago Research Group, an abolitionist activist research collective, have a forthcoming book on the production and weaponization of data by local police, federal immigration authorities, and national security agencies to target Black, Latinx, and Arab/Muslim communities in Chicago.

This event is part Compositions, Gaspar’s solo exhibition on view now at the Institute of the Arts and Sciences.

Image: Maria Gaspar, Disappearance Jail, (2021-Ongoing). 165+ perforated archival Inkjet prints on rice paper, 5 x 7 inches. Courtesy of the Artist – Photo by Anne Martinete.