Beyondmedia's Women and Prison programming supports formerly incarcerated women and their families to voice their stories through the arts, engaging their issues and experiences to create opportunities for dialogue, healing and community organizing. Since 1998 Beyondmedia has collaborated extensively with formerly incarcerated women and girls to create interdisciplinary, multimedia forums on women and prison. The invisibility of women's perspectives and experiences in discussions of the growing prison industrial complex constitutes a serious gap, given that the numbers of women in this male oriented system are increasing at an alarming rate. The incarceration of women is linked to a multitude of interconnected issues facing poor women, drug-addicted women, women of color, lesbians, and women in prostitution, including interpersonal and state violence, poverty, racism, reproductive oppression, homophobia, harassment, lack of quality healthcare, homelessness, and more. By making the issues of women prisoners more visible, we expand the analysis and strategies being developed to seriously challenge the criminal justice system and work to end the cycle of crisis it creates for women and their families.

Women and Prison: A Site for Resistance is an interactive website recently launched by Beyondmedia. The site has a dual objective: to make visible women's experiences in the criminal justice system; and to offer information, strategies and actions that challenge the system and the ways that it reproduces discrimination, exploitation, and civil injustices in the treatment of women and their families. Women and Prison: A Site for Resistance is comprised of oral narratives in audio and transcription forms; creative writing and essays by currently and formerly incarcerated mothers and their children; images from the Voices in Time: Lives in Limbo installation; scholarly articles; and links to sites, reports and resources on women's incarceration already available on the internet. More than half of the contributions come from women in the prison system. A Site for Resistance is the first comprehensive internet resource speaking out and organizing against the incarceration of women and girls. Visit Women and Prison: A Site for Resistance and participate! top

Beyondmedia and Rose House are launching a new project that will train formerly incarcerated women as public speakers and bring Voices in Time to affected communities in far north and far south Chicago. Check back for more information! top

For the past several months, Beyondmedia has been collaborating with PART (Prostitution Alternatives Round Table), a program of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, on a media workshop with survivors of prostitution. The women have developed media and activism skills, and have produced a video called Turning A Corner that they can use in their efforts to reduce stigma and raise awareness of the systemic causes of prostitution to advocate for change. Check it out! You can currently purchase it online!
Check out our trailer for Turning A Corner:
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In March 2004, Beyondmedia collaborated with our longtime partner, Chicago Legal Advocacy for Incarcerated Mothers (CLAIM), to produce Voices in Time: Lives in Limbo, a series of art & education events on women and girls' incarceration and its impact on families at Las Manos Gallery in Chicago. The event aimed to give voice to imprisoned women and girls through visual art, media, written and spoken word, and critical dialogue. This project featured Beyondmedia's multimedia installation that recreates a prison cell through the eyes of its female prisoners together with live performances by former prisoners, an exhibition of art by women and girls in prison and an audio installation with family members of incarcerated women. A discussion series with leading activists, scholars and former prisoners followed, focusing on:

1. Race and Gender in the Prison System
2. Children and Parents in Prison
3. Forms of Resistance to the Prison-Industrial Complex
4. Reentry - Challenges and Opportunities

We plan to continue touring with Voices In Time in Spring '05 - check our events page for details.

Quotes from Voices In Time

"I never thought about women in prison because I wasn't one of "those" people. After listening to the lecture series and interacting with the exhibit I feel compelled to help end the atrocities occuring in prison.."
Robin Roberts, high school teacher

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Beyondmedia works with 35-50 incarcerated girls, aged 11-17, to develop a sense of community, pride and self-determination as they learn a wide range of media skills and gain opportunities for self-expression. Current activities include creating a Girl Talk logo and teaching skills in audio production to produce their own radio program. We also worked with the girls to create artwork and poetry that was exhibited in Beyondmedia¹s recent month-long Voices in Time: Lives in Limbo multimedia exhibition at Las Manos Gallery. We will be working with other Girl Talk partners to provide resources and opportunities for the girls once released, such as additional media and technology training, volunteer opportunities, internships, and working on other Beyondmedia Girls! Action! Media! projects. top

This interactive art installation and companion live performance, Only Women Bleed, was created and performed by women recently released from prison. A recreation of a prison cell with a narrow cot and typical belongings - a box under the bed holding toiletries, snacks, shoes and clothes, another box holding family photos, letters from women in prison, a diary, magazines - the cell invites viewers to study its contents. The cot is covered in a handmade quilt sewn from drawings and messages on cloth by incarcerated girls and swatches of clothing contributed by incarcerated women. Traveling to communities across Chicago significantly impacted by rising incarceration, this project was viewed by more than 12,000 people in 30 days. Beyondmedia partnered with 17 Chicago-based organizations, universities and cultural centers to produce30 Days, and we have continued to tour the project. An open 'town-hall' style community dialogue facilitated by the performers follows each performance. top

In 1999, we began working with 42 recently released women at Grace House in Chicago. After participating in our media production workshop these women produced an award-winning video, What We Leave Behind, to educate the public about some of the causes and effects of women's incarceration. Over 200 groups nationwide now use this video as an organizing and educational tool and many former prisoners have developed as public speakers and advocates through facilitating audience discussions with screenings. top