Dying in Prison: Multi-Media Approaches to Documenting Harm and Imagining Alternatives

We are hosting a film-screening of the Emmy-nominated documentary "I am Ready, Warden" in the McCormack Screening Room, followed by a panel with the film’s director, acclaimed journalist Keri Blakinger and MacArthur Genius Grant Award winner Andrea Armstrong, a law professor renowned for documenting deaths in Louisiana prisons. Following the screening (of the 37-minute film), the panel will take place in the OC&SEAA exhibit space across from Langson Library, timed to coincide with a fall exhibit highlighting PrisonPandemic, a UCI project to archive incarcerated Californian’s COVID-19 experiences. The OC&SEAA space can accommodate up to 100 people, who will have the opportunity to engage with Blakinger and Armstrong about their different approaches to documenting death and dying in prison, as well as to explore the PrisonPandemic exhibit, which includes art, letters, ephemera, and audio recorded selections (including recorded narratives playing through four refurbished prison phones with which the audience will be able to interact) from the PrisonPandemic archive. We plan to host the event in the early evening and serve light refreshments. By bringing people into the OC&SEAA space to interact with the PrisonPandemic exhibit early in fall quarter, we hope to spark greater interest in and engagement with the exhibit over the remainder of the quarter. We expect that faculty and students from across these schools and departments will attend the screening and panel and interact with the exhibit.

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