May 1, 6-8 p.m.
“Art, Psychology, and Justice”
A Conversation w/ Craig Haney and Sherrill Roland
Moderated by Jennifer González
Shiva Gallery, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
524 W 59th St, New York, NY 10019

Craig Haney is a social psychologist and a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, noted for his work on the study of capital punishment and the psychological impact of imprisonment and prison isolation. Haney has published five books, numerous research articles, entries in law reviews, and articles for the Huffington Post about the psychological impacts of incarceration, advocating for prison reform. He has served as an expert witness in several influential United States Federal Court cases related to the prison environment and punishment. Moreover, Haney’s work was influential in the United States Supreme Court 5-4 ruling of Brown v. Plata (2011), which upheld a lower court ruling that the California prison population be reduced.

Sherrill Roland creates art the challenges ideas around the people and structures caught within the webs of mass incarceration, policing, and the U.S. criminal justice system. Much of his current work reflects on his wrongful conviction and time spent in prison. Although eventually exonerated of all charges and granted a bill of innocence, Roland’s experiences with the justice system had a lasting effect on both his life and his artistic practice. Through sharing his own story, and creating a space for others to process, question, and share, he sheds light on the enormous darkness incarceration brings.

Roland was born in Asheville, NC, received both his BFA in Design and MFA in Studio Art from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. His performances and installations have been featured at Contemporary Art Museum, Houston; the New Gallery of Modern Art, Charlotte, NC; ARTspace, Raleigh, NC; Studio Museum in Harlem, NY; Weatherspoon Art Museum in Greensboro, NC; Princeton University, NJ; Brooklyn Public Library, NY; University of Illinois Chicago; Appalachian State University, Boone, NC; Guilford College, NC; Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibition, CA; and Elsewhere Museum, NC. 

Jennifer González, Professor, History of Art and Visual Culutre, UC Santa Cruz, writes about contemporary art with an emphasis on installation, digital and activist art. She is interested in understanding the strategic use of space (exhibition space, public space, virtual space) by contemporary artists and by cultural institutions such as museums. More specifically, she has focused on the representation of the human body and its relation to discourses of race and gender.

González’s publication history includes the monographs Subject to Display: Reframing Race In Contemporary Installation Art (MIT Press, 2008) and Pepón Osorio (University of Minnesota Press, 2013). González also served as chief editor for the co-edited volume Chicana and Chicano Art: A Critical Anthology, with Ondine Chavoya, Chon Noriega and Tere Romo (Duke University Press 2019). She has published articles in numerous scholarly and art publications such as Journal of Visual Culture, Frieze, Bomb, Diacritics, Archives of American Art Journal, Camera Obscura, Open Space and Art Journal.   González has received fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the American Association of University Women, and the American Council of Learned Societies. She lectures extensively at universities and art museums nationally and internationally and teaches regularly at the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program, New York.