Nicole Fleetwood on Prison Nation

Join Nicole R. Fleetwood for a discussion about Aperture’s “Prison Nation” magazine at Revolution Books.

At a moment when 2.2 million people are incarcerated in the US, 3.8 million people are on probation, and 870,000 former prisoners are on parole, how can images tell the story of mass incarceration when the imprisoned don’t have control over their own representation? How can photographs visualize a reality that disproportionately affects people of color, and, for many, remains outside of view? Aperture magazine’s spring issue, “Prison Nation,” addresses the unique role photography plays in creating a visual record of this national crisis.

Revolution Books is a non-profit/all-volunteer bookstore that is the political, intellectual, and cultural center for a movement for an actual revolution. There is a $5-$10 donation for this program.

Nicole R. Fleetwood is associate professor in the Department of American Studies at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. She is currently completing a book on art and mass incarceration. Her two previous books are Troubling Vision: Performance, Visuality, and Blackness(2011) and On Racial Icons: Blackness and the Public Imagination (2015). Fleetwood is the recipient of awards and fellowships from NYPL’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, American Council of Learned Societies, Whiting Foundation, Schomburg Center for Scholars-in-Residence, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and National Endowment for the Arts.