The Role of the Arts in Criminal Justice and Policing (Podcast Transcript)

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Sherylynn Sealy:
Welcome to a podcast by Grantmakers in the Arts, a national membership association of public and private arts and culture funders. I'm Sherylynn Sealy, GIAs Program Manager. GIA is a community of practice with a shared vision of investing in arts and culture as a strategy for social change. Since 2008, GIA has been elevating racial equity as a critical issue affecting the field. To actualize this work within the sector, GIA published its racial equity and arts funding statement of purpose in 2015. Since then, this journey has reaffirmed the many intersections at play as we leverage our dollars for the deepest impact and continue exploring new ways to be agents of change. This podcast is part of the 2020 Grantmakers in the Arts Racial Equity Podcast Series. In this podcast episode, we are glad to have Deborah Fisher Executive Director of A Blade of Grass and Shaun Leonardo, an American artist and performer best known for his work, exploring the relationships between masculinity, sports, race, and culture. So Shaun and Debra, thank you for joining us today. How are you both showing up?

Deborah Fisher:
Oh, that's a good question. Show showing up a little, yeah, definitely feeling this new state of things where balancing childcare and work life and school and everything in the house, it's a very busy house to say.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Got it.

Deborah Fisher:
And I'm happy to be carving out some time. Yeah.

Sherylynn Sealy:
I know, we are honored. Thank you.

Shaun Leonardo:
I can only imagine Deb, I mean, with a four-year-old just trying to establish some rhythm is in of itself the largest tasks that I feel I've had in years. However, even in the weariness, I think there is a way in which that extreme, focused of directing your energies in one place or another, and really committing to family has a way of shedding light on what should be prioritized. And so I have to say that in light of a lot of heat to drama following me and swirling both personally and in my artistic career, there is a way in which you get to refine what matters most.

Sherylynn Sealy:
That's right.

Deborah Fisher:
Yeah, absolutely.

Sherylynn Sealy:
So I'm going to dive right in. I'm going to kick it over to you, Deb. So can you talk a little bit about A Blade of Grass and your mission?

Deborah Fisher:
Sure. A Blade of Grass was founded in 2011 and we only support socially engaged art. And we were founded with a very broad mandate in terms of what that means. And we were founded with a pretty generous seed contributions so that we could do some experimental things, we didn't have to start chasing funding right away. So A Blade of Grass is really dedicated to the idea that it has to make socially engaged art more visible, precisely because it's to secondary audiences, right? Because it happens in a community, in a place that is inaccessible or other people are not invited right, such as a prison or a school or among people only this group of people of color and so on and so on and so on. Right? And so the power of the work is that it is a highly experiential and collaborative and it resides inside the participation of people and in relationships and empowered dynamics.

And because of that, the nut that we've been working to crack, for almost a decade now actually, is to really think about how to make this work understandable and supportable and shareable to audiences that are not there. So we do that with funding individual projects through a fellowship program that is now in its seventh year. And we also do that through creating a variety of content experiences, magazine, films, public programming, lots and lots of different avenues for making sure that things come out of the project, that are not the project themselves, but that help people understand the work.

Sherylynn Sealy:
That's great. And you mentioned that you support projects for people and in places that aren't necessarily spaces where groups of people are typically invited. And I'm thinking specifically about Black and Brown people right now. So why the decision to dive even more deeply into projects related to policing and mass incarceration, because socially engaged, as you mentioned, it's like a broad spectrum, but you've gotten pretty deep into policing and mass incarceration. So can you talk a little bit about that decision?

Deborah Fisher:
Absolutely. So one of the things that we were founded believing is that we have no idea how to best do our work and that we have to listen first. So the open call is that we've been doing for the past seven years is one of many ways that we are trying to create a listening stance, right. Projects about criminal justice and racial justice have been in the top three issue areas for artists applying to the fellowship since the beginning. Racial justice is the number one issue area for artists that are applying to the fellowship for six years in a row. So we have to listen to that and we're trying to create a cohort of projects that is reflective of the body of the open call itself. And we are thinking through what we need to be invested in by listening to who applies and how they apply. And we're hoping that that creates a feedback loop, right?

So we've almost always had multiple projects about criminal justice that are working within the criminal justice system. And we've never had a year where we didn't have at least one project that is actively trying to heal or reflect on or change how we relate to structural racism.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Yeah, no, that's great. And to have an open call and to just look through what you're getting and have the responses define the direction that you go, I think is really important. And to have one third of the submissions be around criminal justice is fantastic. And so of course, we have the amazing Shaun Leonardo with us today to discuss some of the work that you've done together. And so I assume that you were connected through an open call, but if not, how did you both get connected? And I know that you've also known each other for some time now, so if you could talk a little bit about that ongoing and fruitful relationship that you've developed together.

Deborah Fisher:
Shaun and I met because we both worked at Socrates Sculpture Park more than a decade ago.

Shaun Leonardo:
That's right.

Deborah Fisher:
Wow, okay.

Shaun Leonardo:
No, I also want to make a special call-out to say that Deb has also participated in my work.

Deborah Fisher:
That's true.

Shaun Leonardo:
And so she comes to the practice as a supporter after having intimately experienced a move through the work. And I think that for any artist is the best case scenario.

Sherylynn Sealy:
I want to ask, I've seen so many of your videos, one that immediately comes to mind is the, I can't breathe performance, but there are others. So which one did you participate in if I can ask?

Deborah Fisher:
It was, I can't breathe.

Sherylynn Sealy:
The one that I was basically sobbing to.

Deborah Fisher:
Absolutely.

Sherylynn Sealy:
All right. So on that note, Shaun can you tell listeners and us a little bit about your art practice in this context?

Shaun Leonardo:
Sure. And before I start to describe my practice and really talk to the intentions of my practice, I also want to note one thing which you've already brought up. In that, the spectrum of socially engaged practice is inclusive of many different approaches and tactics in terms of engagement and in terms of being rooted in community action, in activism. But I think what's important to note in terms of the leverage and support that and A Blade of Grass grant gives and also the support that the staff offer is this ability for practitioner like myself, to be highly intentional in regards to the community that we work with and on behalf of. And that really allows us to form a different kind of starting point and move in the work with a different kind of spirit, because we understand that the work first and foremost can serve a hyper-local constituency. And I want to remove some of that language to begin with, it's like the observing and, or constituency, this idea that we can co-authoring, co-design a project with a community that we are a part of and work with.

So that the project can evolve with the questions and concerns that are most central and most important to those people and to myself for that matter. And so to answer your question about the work and to address the work that A Blade of Grass is supporting, I should, as a backdrop, tell you a little bit about how I've arrived at this moment, particularly through the justice system and the work that I have dedicated myself to and system intervention, as it can be described. About five years ago, along with Allison Wiseberg, who's the Executive Director of the nonprofit Brooklyn-based Recess, we founded a program entitled, Assembly. Which in its earliest stages worked in conjunction with partners within the court, namely Brooklyn Justice Initiatives, to create a series of visual storytelling workshops for young people, age 18 to 25 who have been arrested. And in order to satisfy a condition of the court, they would come to me for four week cycle of these workshops. Afterwards, their cases could be closed and their records sealed.

Now, that work is invested most in the ways in which the young people that come to me have already started to prescribe themselves as criminal. And that is the major failure of our society. Is that a young person due to the messaging, both explicitly and implicitly, that they receive in the streets, at home, through police interactions, at schools, feel deeply have internalized this idea that they are less than, that they are consistently and constantly devalued. So quite often, by the time they've been arrested, the way they express those circumstances in that event is in a very matter of fact fashion. And it's because so much of their surroundings has told them that it is just the matter of time and that's to expect that they would be treated as less than and worthless. And so the work that I'm dedicated to in the space of Assembly and through these workshops, is the undoing of that definition. So that a young person first and foremost sees their own narrative as an individual narrative, as a narrative about a human being, as opposed to some preconceived notion of criminality.

I also want to mention that Recess takes a really radical stake in this work, in that anyone that "graduates through the court mandated cycle" may choose to stay on and be paid for their creative endeavors. And that work is shaped in a number of different ways, but quite often takes the role of an artist's apprentice. And much of that embedded practice, that system intervention practice has inspired through the very similar methodology, these larger public facing works. And the work that A Blade of Grass has collaborated with me on and still does, is a work in which I am negotiating conversations regarding isolation and regarding the fear of prison experiences in and around namely Rikers with four different group affiliations. Corrections officers, legal advocates, both in prosecution and defense, court involved youth, such as the youth that I work with through Assembly, and the final group of formerly incarcerated individuals.

And even with the abrupt stoppage of COVID and the risks associated with it, where we could no longer come in in person, I'm happy to say that these folks have really owned up to a connection, to their work, and to a relationship with me. And so we've continued our work through a virtual workshop process that will result in some kind of video production.

Sherylynn Sealy:
That's awesome. My next question was going to be who is your work for, and what do you intend the outcome to be? But you've just said so much. And your work is for the young Black and Brown boys. Well, this is one group, right? And would hope to shift their thinking about how they see themselves, not to see themselves as a statistic and to acquire, you said, acquire the ability to make more choices, which I think is powerful. But in all of your work, you're also working with prison staff, you're working with so many different people on so many different projects ultimately to achieve this goal. But I'm thinking about also the people who attend the performances and who you work with outside of the, I'm going to use the word constituency lightly. But the other people who are observing your practice, what are you hoping if they don't identify as a Black and Brown young person, what are you hoping that they get from being a part of, or observing your work?

Shaun Leonardo:
Yeah, let me provide a few different answers to that because I think it's important to state that when I'm working in between communities, quite often communities that would identify one another as enemy or opposition, the goals and objectives of that part of my practice is always still in service of those young, Black and Brown folks that are my Assembly community and I should say my neighbors as well, the community in which I live. And I would not have imagined myself this capacity of situating the work in between communities in conflict. But I think what I've learned is that there's a way in which, through an in socially engaged practice, we can create a different way of existing together in physical space. And it's through the kind of methodology that I pursue in Assembly and the practice of many other brilliant artists that we ask people to slow down and reconsider how they see one another.

And so to answer your question in terms of the audience and the public that come to my work, I ask them to regard themselves as participants on some level. In that, what I am hoping for them is to understand that the issues of mass incarceration, policing, that those issues are ones in which the removal of humanity implicates all of us. And there's one thing that I have often said, in that the criminal justice system, predicates its "success" on its invisibility. And by that, I mean that we uphold it in our belief that only bad people go away. And in order to uphold that system and maintain that belief, we have to disconnect our own humanity from those that are behind bars. And that ultimately is our collective responsibility to undo.

Sherylynn Sealy:
That's great. Thank you for making those points. And so just to kind of go back to where we started at the beginning of the conversation, what would the message be to funders when it comes to addressing issues of criminal justice, incarceration and policing specifically?

Deborah Fisher:
Well, I think the first thing I would do is ask a question right? About, this is a GIA podcast and we're not addressing policy around criminal justice issues. We're not addressing legislative solutions, we're talking about art projects, right? So one of the things that I would love to be better articulated within the funding landscape is why art, and how do we make sure that we're valuing the art itself for art reasons. Because a funny problem with this work or this very well-intentioned and important desire that I completely share to make sure that art funding is going to things that are really consequential, like Shaun's work, right. An attendant could be trying to turn, misunderstanding what art can do and what it can't do. Right. Shaun just said some things that were really clear about what art can do. Art can create cultural changes, it can point us in a direction where we're seeing that we're thriving, what is the difference between thriving and surviving?

It can, in a criminal justice context, Ana Bermúdez the commissioner of the Department of Probation here in New York City is incredibly clear about why she has been working with artists for decades, right? The idea that you are a criminal is an identity problem, right, you become the worst thing that you have ever done, right. And identity is cultural and you can address it with cultural solutions, right, you can change your identity by engaging in cultural creative acts. You have to create that new identity. But there are a lot of things that art can't do in the space, right. And I think that, not really fully addressing what art can and cannot do and the role that it plays in a criminal justice or any other social justice ecosystem, limits funding, it limits the visionary potential of what's possible. And it can also sometimes put artists in really weird positions, like the language that we've always used about this in the office is, we never want to put artists on the hook for saving the world for 20,000 bucks. Because it's never going to happen for one thing.

And because art is a space of imagination, it can just work and because art can also be, and this is a very good thing, it can be a funny junk drawer where anything that you want to have happen that is totally uncategorizable can go in that space. Right. It can be anything that's good. But that also means that we have to be very responsible, particularly from the funding angle. Right. For being very directed about what kind of impacts we think art can have, as opposed to only thinking about the social impact, which is different. Shaun's not going to reform the criminal justice system and that's okay, that's appropriate. What are we funding instead?

Shaun Leonardo:
That's right. No, absolutely.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Makes a lot of sense.

Deborah Fisher:
You know what I mean?

Shaun Leonardo:
I want to go off of everything that Deb just said and in doing so I need to broaden the conceptual and philosophical definition of policing. Because when I think of art's capacity to confront policing, I also think of the ways in which arts institutions and the hierarchical structures within continue to police Black and Brown bodies. And the ways that it controls and contains practices by Black and Brown practitioners, the ways in which it tries to contain and control Black and Brown audiences and the ways in which it silences, contains and controls, academics, and administrators that are working within these structures. And so if we think about policing in those terms, the ways in which the interests concerns, questions and lives of Black and Brown bodies are continuously silenced, dismissed, pushed aside. Then I started to wonder, what is the philanthropic responsibility to disrupting that hierarchical structure and the ways that White supremacist values operate within these institutions.

And one of the ways I think it can counter these structures and these behaviors, these patterns of being, is by more intentionally saying to itself, we want to fund ecosystems, that it is not necessarily just project driven, that one project can only do so much. And so what would it look like for example, for an assembly program to be supported, not only in the closure of cases, but in the mental health of our young people and the acquiring jobs for our young people. In moving the work into other communities so we developed systems of accountability and care that are so central to my practice and needed in communities outside of our walls. So understand that it is an ethos and an ecosystem that is what the work actually is. It's not just a workshop.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Yeah, that's absolutely right.

Deborah Fisher:
Yeah. And I also think it's important to take exactly that idea right. And run it through the lens of, because Shaun's absolutely right, one of the reasons that we're super interested, and one of the reasons that A Blade of Grass is very interested in funding, in supporting socially engaged art at a variety of levels, right, is precisely this idea of interconnectedness and ecosystem, right? The work isn't a project. And there's something about the way that that changes our definitions of what the outcomes are, what is possible, what is impact, right. Everything about why we're supporting it and why it's successful can become re-imagined by looking to the art itself. Because the art has a very different way of understanding all of these questions of success, impact, et cetera.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Absolutely, everything you're saying in terms of ecosystem and interconnectedness, I continue to say this word in this, the Racial Equity Podcast Series, and that word is intersectionality. Just thinking about how everything truly does interact. And when we think about race specifically, and the need for support to address ecosystem issues and not just one isolated issue. I want to ask if you have any final thoughts, both of you for our listeners?

Shaun Leonardo:
I would like to say one last thing, absolutely. And Debra, I'll give you the last word. I think what's important in this dialogue is for us to remember and to remind ourselves that institutions and systems, while they feel big and are so often considered a monolith, are made up of individuals.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Absolutely.

Shaun Leonardo:
And quite often, when we talk about statement of objectives and moving into anti-racism work, what we're asking for is a commitment from a person to see their role in the work as a person, as a human being. And so often, particularly in leadership of philanthropic organizations or museum leadership, but also in criminal justice organizations that are moving for reform, moving toward abolition. We see leaders that hide behind the work. And what we need more of are folks that implicate themselves in the works that they are supporting and that in many respects and specific to this conversation, that their own whiteness and the ways that they see their own individual identity, is tied to the work that they support and in the ways that they support. And that to implicate themselves means that they're moving toward the work, as opposed to just signing the check and believing that the work is done.

Deborah Fisher:
Yeah. I want to just build on that a little bit and go back to the idea that we listen to what's going on in the open call and what's going on with artists generally, right? It's a way of working that ultimately within A Blade of Grass, and I think that this is incredibly effective. We're in a moment of real institutional reckoning in general. I don't know if you guys have noticed?

Sherylynn Sealy:
No, I haven't, don't know what you're talking about actually.

Deborah Fisher:
The alarms are going off so loudly in all of our ears and no institution of any kind, funding institution, museum, small arts, nonprofit that supports socially engaged art, everybody's dealing with the idea that we can't keep doing things the way that we've always done them. Right. And one of the things that I've been thinking a lot about is the fact that we have let the work change us, and that's, I think really important. So we did not start, A Blade of Grass, did not start from a position of being POC led, having any particular interest or expertise in issues of racial justice. We have made huge mistakes on this front, but we have, as Shaun would say, moved pretty consistently toward the work and toward what is presenting itself to us, right? That sense of things being a call and response, I think is an incredibly important way to walk into the future of institutions.

We don't know what that is right now, but we're finding that the old ways aren't working. And I do think that one of the things that is working for us anyway, is the way that we've been able to legitimately be changed by having experiences with the work itself. And I think that that is something that we want to definitely lean into more in the future, because that's generalizable.

Shaun Leonardo:
Beautifully said, Deb.

Sherylynn Sealy:
That was excellent. Thank you so very much both of you for being here today for this conversation and for participating in our Racial Equity Podcast Series. And so to our listeners, we look forward to continuing these conversations. So please be sure to tune in to our GIA Racial Equity Podcast Series and be sure you're following us on Facebook at GIArts, Twitter @GIArts and Instagram at Grantmakers in the Arts. And if you have any questions, you can feel free to reach out to me. Sherylynn Sealy at sherylynn@giarts.org. And lastly, as Brian Stevenson says: "the true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated and the condemned." Thank you so much for listening.