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On View

Solitary Garden

Nov. 5, 2019 - Ongoing

Solitary Garden, the participatory public sculpture and garden project by jackie sumell, is on view at UC Santa Cruz Baskin Art Studios. Perched on a slope at UC Santa Cruz overlooking Monterey Bay, Solitary Garden is a participatory public sculpture and garden project by award-winning artist jackie sumell in collaboration with Tim Young, who is currently on Death Row in San Quentin State Prison, fighting to prove his innocence in the California appellate court system. The sculpture follows the blueprint of a 6’x9’ U.S. solitary confinement cell similar to the one that Tim has been confined to for twenty-one years. The stark cell is surrounded by a garden which Tim designed via letters and drawings to students and volunteers, who cultivate it as his proxies.

Location

Elena Baskin Visual Arts Center
1156 High St, Santa Cruz, CA 95064
P (831) 459-0111
Email ias@ucsc.edu

Date and Times

November 5, 2019 - Ongoing

Students pose in front of the UCSC Solitary Garden

I pictured myself at Solitary Garden. I sat on the bench, and I overlooked the garden in solitude. … And then, I did what I’ve been dreaming of for so long. I squatted down and felt the earth. I picked up the soil and let it sift through my hands. It has been 21 years.
Timothy James Young

About the Exhibit

The 6’x 9’ sculpture of the solitary cell is a conduit for learning about the experiences of Tim Young. As part of Solitary Garden, Tim began writing letters for the project from, as he describes it, “a tiny, antiquated, windowless cell on San Quentin’s East Block,” a lockdown unit that houses the majority of the 750 people currently on California’s Death Row. He spent upwards of twenty-two hours a day in this cell so narrow that he cannot fully extend his arms. Tim has since been moved to Pelican Bay State Prison.

A growing movement

Tim and jackie are part of a growing collection of committed activists both in and out of prison who are working to not only improve the conditions in which incarcerated people live—to humanize the cages—but also to tear down the cages altogether. Their end goal is to build a more equitable society in which cages are no longer the solution for social problems associated with poverty, mental illness, and racism. As Tim says, the call of Solitary Garden is to “free’m all!”

Letters from Inside (Tab to skip section.)

Hands with black nail polish hold a collection of letters from Tim Young.

Letters from Inside

Since August 2019, with letters and topics ranging from garden designs and plant lists to more personal reflections about his childhood and his life in prison, Tim has provided a striking glimpse into his small cell and to conditions in San Quentin, including the horrific spread of Covid-19 in the prison and his own illness from the virus. Despite the conditions described in his letters, however, when Tim writes of the concrete walls and metal bars that surround him, he describes roses blooming through cracks in the concrete and vines of jasmine climbing the bars.

Read the letters

Tim writes, “With racism impacting all aspects of not only policing but also how the courts mete out their judgments and sentences, how could justice be found within the same systems constructed around discrimination against Black people, people of color, indigenous people, and the poor?…Abolition would give us a blank state, and should be part of the reparations that are past due in the United States.”

While Tim is currently fighting to prove his innocence as a wrongly convicted prisoner, based on his experiences he sees abolition as a means to end hundreds of years of oppression and systemic racism.

Tim’s vision of abolition includes building solutions for centuries old problems by focusing on prevention, rehabilitation, and community—questioning the nation’s dependence on prisons, punishment, and isolation as a solution to social problems.

About the artists

A woman with curly brown hair and a gray shirt poses with her arms crossed.

jackie sumell

jackie sumell is a multidisciplinary artist and abolitionist inspired most by the lives of everyday people. Her work has been successfully anchored at the intersection of activism, education, mindfulness practices and art for nearly two decades, and it has been exhibited extensively throughout the world. She has been the recipient of multiple residencies and fellowships including, but not limited to, a Source Fellowship, A Blade of Grass, Robert Rauschenberg Artist-as-Activist Fellowship, a Soros Justice Fellowship, an Eyebeam Fellowship, a Headlands Residency and a Schloss Solitude Residency Fellowship.

A black man sits in a red chair in a prison cell.

Tim Young

Tim was born and raised in central California. Before his wrongful conviction, he dreamed of traveling across the country and immersing himself in his art. He uses his artistic talents to write poetry and essays on environmentalism, racism, and prison abolition. Tim’s poetry weaves scenes of nature together with America’s dark past to articulate different struggles Black people in America have faced and continue to struggle against today. Write Tim!
Timothy James Young F23374 RJD Correctional Facility 480 Alta Road San Diego, Ca. 92179

Jackie, in your letter you asked me: ‘What sort of house does a man who has lived in a 6’ x 9’ cell for over 30-years dream of?!’…The gardens are the easiest for me to imagine, and I can see they would be certain to be full of gardenias, carnations and tulips. This is of the utmost importance. I would like for guests to be able to smile and walk through flowers all year long.
Herman Wallace, excerpt from a letter to jackie sumell, February 1, 2006

A view of the installation in the garden, based on the blueprint of a 6x9' US solitary confinement cell.

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Learn More

Articles about Tim Young and Solitary Garden

Chessa Adsit-Morris

“Using socially engaged art to teach environmental and social justice,” in Teaching Environmental Justice, eds Sikina Jinnah, Jessie Dubreuil, Jody Greene and Samara S. Foster, 2023.