The Voices of Marking Time

Nicole Fleetwood’s interest in the art making of imprisonment grew out of a project she began while visiting loved ones in prison. Her interviews with artists and activists about their experiences of our carceral systems culminated in her book Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration.

MoMA PS1’s new exhibition of the same name features artists who were incarcerated or impacted by the US prison system, and who address these issues in their work. In this episode of the Magazine Podcast, Fleetwood speaks with artists James Hough, Rowan Renee, Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter aka Isis tha Saviour, and Halim Flowers. Their conversations explore the relationship between art and freedom, the failures of the American carceral system, and their perspectives on prison abolition and how empathetic justice might be achieved.

Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration is organized by Dr. Nicole R. Fleetwood, Guest Curator; and Amy Rosenblum-Martín, Guest Assistant Curator; with Jocelyn Miller, former Assistant Curator, MoMA PS1; and Josephine Graf, Curatorial Assistant, MoMA PS1. The exhibition runs through April 4, 2021.