Freedom Rising Art Exhibit
Artwork by Henry C. Walker State Prison
Freedom Rising Art Exhibit
Please note this exhibit runs from April 4th to May 31st.
The Freedom Rising Art Exhibition produced by Middle Church, and curated by art activist, Genesis Be, in collaboration with HeartBound Ministries, features 20 original works from 9 incarcerated artists currently being held at the Georgia Department of Corrections.
We aim to challenge our audience’s concept of freedom by highlighting the imagination, dreams, memories, life experiences, and talents of artists who do not have their freedom. There is a need to reevaluate our collective morality around the American prison system. Who do we deem worthy of freedom? Who do we believe is deserving of confinement and isolation? By humanizing the carceral issue through art, we can begin to analyze the way criminalization and dehumanization allow the general public to grant permission to reduce humans to “criminals” and remove them from our society and collective consciousness.
This exhibit also features two artists from the “free world” to showcase in solidarity with their incarcerated counterparts. Here, they use their privilege of freedom to help bring attention to our confined artists, who are unable to promote their work to the general public. As you view the work, think about your individual role in the prison industrial complex. May it spark a curiosity that leads to research, may research lead to action.
Special thanks to you Focus For Health Foundation for your continued support.
Featured artists:
Bobby A.
Antowon R.
Henry C.
Juan M.
Kevin D.
Seth B.
David W.
D Garcia
Robert S.
Artists in solidarity:
Mary Jo Lombardo
Yolanda Grace
Produced by
In Collaboration with
About Middle Church
Middle Church is where therapy meets Broadway; where art and dance meet a gospel revival; where old time religion gets a new twist. We are Bach, The Beatles, and Beethoven; we are jazz, hip-hop, and spirituals. We are inspired by Howard Thurman, Ruby Sales, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Martin Luther King. We are on-your-feet worship and take-it-to-the-streets activism. We feed the hungry and work for a living wage; we fight for LGBTQ+ equality and march for racial/ethnic justice. We stand up for the stranger and the immigrant; we care for women’s lives and Mother Earth.
Middle Church is a multicultural, multiethnic, intergenerational movement of Spirit and justice, powered by fierce, revolutionary Love, with room for all. Following in the Way of Jesus’ radical love, and inspired by the prophets, Middle Church is called by God to do a bold new thing on the earth. We aim to heal souls and the world by dismantling racist, classist, sexist, ethnocentrist, ableist, cisheterosexist and other systems of oppression.
Because our God is still speaking in many languages, we work in interreligious partnerships to uproot injustice, eradicate poverty, care for the brokenhearted, nurture our planet, and build the Reign of God on earth. This activism is fueled by our faith; our faith is expressed in art; our art is an active prayer connecting us with the Holy Spirit. Middle Church affirms the transformative power of moral imagination, reclaiming and reframing Christianity inside our walls, on the street, and in virtual spaces around the globe.