Voices on the Inside - Opening Reception hosted by Poetic Justice

Opening Reception for Voices on the Inside.

Poetic Justice is a community within and beyond women's prisons, working alongside one another with a shared belief in the power of self-expression to change lives. We provide data-driven, trauma-informed, and gender sensitive restorative arts programs in women’s prisons, jails, and drug rehabs. Voices on the Inside, the Poetic Justice exhibition of self-portrait poetry and photography created by incarcerated artists in collaboration with photographer Lisa Loftus, was chosen by the San Diego-Tijuana World Design Capital as an Impact Partner, to unite our community with design thinking strategies rooted in the urgent need for a collaborative solution to amending punitive approaches to incarceration and to increasing personal and community healing and harm reduction.

Voices on the Inside, on exhibit at the San Diego Public Library from April 29-July 31, 2024, is an interactive art exhibit that engages visitors in active conversations around self-portrait poetry and photography, mass incarceration, gender-based violence, poverty, addiction, and mental illness. Over 3 months, guests to the Central Library will observe the self-portraits of incarcerated women, read their poetry, and hear them speaking in recorded interviews for the first time. The approach is uniquely centered in their humanity, and all are welcome to this free exhibit.