Social Justice, BLM, and Atlantika is a series of posts by Atlantika members that focus on the critical issues of race and social justice. The year 2020 has tragically brought together a pandemic with outsized impacts on communities of color and ongoing protests against the murder of George Floyd and the many others who have lost their lives as a result of racist violence. As our mission statement makes clear, Atlantika members have always valued “social responsibility, community, and nurturing a contemporary humanism through art.” However, in the wake of recent events, which are critical to the future of the nation and the world, Atlantika has renewed its commitment to make racial and social justice a lasting focal point -- and to do our part to bring about a powerful movement for change.
Atlantika Collective members Gabriela Bulisova and Mark Isaac have done extensive work on issues related to mass incarceration, the racist policy that inordinately targets people of color, subjecting them to lengthy prison sentences, often for nonviolent crimes. Their work has included in-depth and intimate accounts of people’s encounters with the criminal justice system, the difficulties faced by returning citizens trying to reintegrate into society, and a special focus on the impact of mass incarceration on children. In this project, titled Who Speaks for Me, the duo collaborated with Taylar Nuevelle, a Black activist who served four-and-a-half years in prison and now advocates to end the “trauma to prison pipeline” for justice-involved women with mental illness.
Please be certain to read the other posts in this series thus far:
Bill Crandall: Minding the Traces
Billy Friebele and Yam Chew Oh: Social Justice, BLM, and Atlantika
Gabriela Bulisova, Mark Isaac and Taylar Nuevelle
One of the most shocking injustices associated with mass incarceration is the fact that our prisons have become a dumping ground for people who have experienced severe trauma, resulting in mental health issues. Instead of receiving the needed treatment, they are subjected to additional abuse and mistreatment. This project is a collaboration with Taylar Nuevelle, who served four-and-a-half years after she was charged with breaking and entering the house of a former girlfriend and attempting to commit suicide. Taylar was diagnosed with PTSD, trauma, and severe anxiety disorder, and a pre-sentence report recommended that she be treated rather than sent to prison, but the judge overruled this recommendation. In prison, rather than receiving treatment, she was raped, locked in solitary confinement and placed on suicide watch.
We adopted a novel visual and storytelling strategy that allowed Taylar to personally represent her experiences. First, we photographed her and created digital negatives. Taylar then took the negatives and distressed them to represent her abuse. For example, she used bleach as a means of depicting the times her mother scrubbed her skin with a metal brush and bleach. We passed the images back and forth, working on them until we fully represented her pain. Some of the photographs also incorporate text from her writings and diaries. The final images expose the manner in which our criminal justice system has dehumanized those with mental health issues. By sharing her deeply traumatic and painful experiences with us, Taylar is opening the door for others to find their voices, challenge societal stigma and bring about much-needed reforms. She now leads a non-profit named Who Speaks for Me? that is devoted to ending the “trauma to prison pipeline” for women with mental health issues.