SEEN: We Are All Criminals

Weisman Art Museum presents SEEN, an exhibition created as part of a years-long collaboration with We Are All Criminals (WAAC), curated by WAAC director and founder, Emily Baxter. SEEN features currently incarcerated artists in collaboration with artists, activists, and academics in the Twin Cities community. Together they explore issues of incarceration, isolation, healing, and coming home. Representing a range of cultural, personal, and professional backgrounds and diverse forms of artistic expression, people on the “inside” partnered with people on the “outside” based on shared creative curiosities and personal affinities. This exhibition is arranged across two galleries to evoke the experiences of “inside” (carceral) and “outside” (healing and community). 

The seven installations stretch the bounds of the museum as a site for community engagement and critical examination of American carceral institutions. Teams worked together to better understand and explore carceral isolation and trauma and the many ways it has caused generational harm in their own bodies and those of their descendants. To bring healing to the cycle of harm, the participants connect with their families, the community, and each other through this exhibition. 

Featured artists: B Batchelor and Emily Baxter; Sarith Peou and Carl Flink; Ronald “Bino” Greer II and Diane Willow; Lennell “Fresh” Martin and Erin Sharkey; Von Johnson and D.A. Bullock; Jeffery Young, C Fausto Cabrera, and Korina Barry; and Fong Lee and Kevin Yang.

This exhibition was curated by Emily Baxter—an attorney, activist, photographer, and executive director of We Are All Criminals, which is dedicated to amplifying the voices of those most impacted by the criminal justice system.