Kalief Browder: The Box, presented by Pioneer Works, is an installation by artist Coby Kennedy addressing the ongoing injustices of the U.S. incarceration system. In conjunction with the installation’s presentation, artist-led civic engagement organization For Freedoms and Pioneer Works presented a four-part town hall series from July 18 to September 19, 2021, to create a forum of discussion around those same injustices.

Pioneer Works, For Freedoms, and Negative Space collaboratively presented a four-part town hall series that center conversations between legal scholars, activists and artists. Each moderated by Devon Simmons (Paralegal Pathways Initiative, Center for Institutional and Social Change at Columbia Law School), the programs thematically followed the four new freedoms created by For Freedoms’ 2020 Awakening campaign and their work beyond: Listening, Awakening, Healing, and Justice. Just as Kennedy’s installation communicates a fraction of the physical, emotional, and psychological torment of solitary confinement, the series aimed to provide a creatively-driven introduction to the myriad impacts of mass incarceration and to inspire participants to envision a transformed world without prisons.

Program Series of Town Halls at Pioneer Works 

AWAKENING to Transformative Practices

July 18, 2021, 3 to 5 pm

Conversation between Baz Dreisinger (Incarcerations Nations Network, Prison-to-College

Pipeline), Jesse Krimes (Artist), and Jacqueline Renauld-Rivera (Red Hook Community Justice Center, Peacemaking Program)

LISTENING for Individual Stories

August 1, 2021, 3 to 5 pm

Performances by, and a conversation between Rowland Davis (BronxConnect) and Pastor Isaac Scott (The Confined Arts at the Center for Justice at Columbia University)

HEALING through Community Collaboration

August 22, 2021, 3 to 5 pm

Performance by Truthworker Theater Company, and a conversation between Truthworker Theatre Company and Ebony Underwood (We Got Us Now)

JUSTICE for Our Future

September 19, 2021, 3 to 5 pm

Conversation between Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter (Artist), Mikelina Belaineh (Vera Institute, The Last Prisoner Project), and Donna Hylton (Activist)

Artist: Coby Kennedy

Negative Space: Organizer and Artwork Management

Learn more at Pioneer Works