NOLA October 1: Solitary Gardens Unveiling with Albert Woodfox and others
Solitary Gardens Unveiling
Plant the future. Honor the past.
WHEN: Saturday, October 1st 5-6:30pm
WHAT: Please join Albert Woodfox, Malik Rahim, Nana Sula, Vaku and jackie sumell for the 3-year commemoration of Herman Wallace’s freedom after 41-years of unjust captivity.
Project unveiling, tree planting ceremony, special guest speakers and presentations.
WHO: SOLITARY GARDENS is a public art project and land use alternative by jackie sumell that begs us to imagine a landscape without prisons. The project utilizes the tools of prison abolition, permaculture, and alternative education to facilitate unexpected exchanges between persons subjected to solitary confinement and volunteer communities on the “outside.” The six-foot-by-nine-foot Solitary Gardens maintain the blueprint of a US solitary cell and are “gardened” by prisoners through written exchanges with volunteers. Prisons are the descendants of slavery. Solitary Gardens will be constructed from the ancestral byproducts: sugarcane, cotton and indigo — exposing the illusion that slavery was abolished.
WHERE: 2600 Andry Street, New Orleans LA 70117 (across from the newly built MLK High School), site of the Solitary Gardens.
CONTACT: Please Contact Mary Okoth for press questions:
p: 571.426.9181
e: Grow@SolitaryGardens.org
Solitary Gardens thanks the Nathan Cummings Foundation, NORA (New Orleans Redevelopment Authority), the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, VOTE (Voice of the Experienced), Dillard University, SUA NOLA (Supporting Urban Agriculture, New Orleans), Eyebeam NYC, IDIYA Makers’ Space, Antenna Gallery, Swan River Yoga, Reyn Studios, LESGC (Lower East Side Girls Club), Vaku and all those forced to endure the inhumane conditions of solitary confinement; may you prevail with the victory of love.