Incorrigibles – Public Events and Closing Celebration
Join us for Wand-making, Healing Circle, Public Historian Talk, Closing Celebration. Thank you Awesome Foundation Newburgh!September 10th is the last day to visit our exhibition at Ann Street Gallery: Incorrigibles: Bearing Witness to the Incarcerated Girls of New York. Please join us for one or all of the following free events.
12:00 to 3:00 pm: Wand Making & Story Share Workshop
Wand-making: the craft of power reclamation, is a program initiated by artist Alison Cornyn. The program is an invitation to join an art-making space, a self-organized community project hearkening back to the sewing bee. It values interconnected creativity and promotes individual and collective responses to the feminist political and social struggles of today. A wide range of materials are provided (including those from the grounds of the Training School), and participants are invited to experiment and innovate. The workshop is introduced but not formally “led”. Materials, time, and space are all provided to move beyond thinking and towards making. (Drop in at any time between 12:00 and 3:00 pm). Masks, hand sanitizer, water, and a light lunch are provided.
3:00 to 4:00 pm: Healing Circle
We acknowledge the history of trauma and racism in girls’ and women’s incarceration and share a short introduction to this healing practice. Healing Circles help us step out of ordinary time into a safe and accepting environment in which each participant can explore their own healing. With open hearts, we access our own inner guidance to understand where the greatest healing—in body, emotions, mind and spirit—can occur. With open minds, we work together to discover the best ways to remove obstacles to healing, alleviate suffering, and deepen our capacity to heal.
4:00 to 5:00 pm: Talk: The Trouble With Troubled Girls
Too long and too often young women have been misunderstood and thrown into the clutches of the juvenile justice system. The Incorrigibles project has uncovered some of the historical roots of the attitudes and acts that criminalize and stigmatize young women, by exploring documents and stories from the NY State Hudson Girls’ Training School. Using historic images on view as part of the Ann St. Gallery exhibition, Hulser will compare today’s situation with conditions 100 years ago. Audience participation will add a critical edge to this ever-relevant story from the past.
Kathleen Hulser is a public historian who has worked with the Incorrigibles project for the last eight years, uncovering and interpreting the history of girls’ incarceration and marginalization.
5:00 to 7:00 pm: Closing Celebration in the Gallery
If you haven’t had a chance to visit the exhibition yet, this is your opportunity! Incorrigibles: Bearing Witness to the Incarcerated Girls of New York illuminates the systemic failure of the juvenile justice system, advocates for youth justice, and gives voice to the untold stories of those sent to the New York Training School for Girls throughout the 20th century. Located in Hudson, New York, the institution was established in 1904 as the only state-run re-educational facility to provide training for “delinquent” girls between the ages of 12 and 18; closing in 1975.
Newburgh was one of the main communities that sent “incorrigible” girls to this institution in the 1970s.
Please feel free to share this day of events with your contacts. We look forward to seeing you!
For more information: please call 917-575-1025 or email: info@incorrigibles.org
Supported by: The Awesome Foundation – Newburgh Chapter, Humanities New York, The New York Foundation for the Arts In collaboration with: Ann Street Gallery and Safe Harbors of the Hudson
Incorrigibles is a transmedia project that tells the stories of ‘incorrigible’ girls in the United States over the last 100 years – beginning with New York State. Drawing on the personal narratives of young women in “the system”, the work investigates the history and present state of juvenile justice and social services for girls. We have been researching archival documents from the New York State Training School for Girls (1904-1975); recording and sharing accounts of women alive today who were confined there; and organizing community engagement events to encourage critical analysis around youth detention and behavioral intervention today.
Ann Street Gallery is a nonprofit organization under the umbrella of Safe Harbors of the Hudson, that combines supportive housing and the arts. Ann Street Gallery presents contemporary art through exhibitions and programming which create new opportunities for education and immersion in the arts in Newburgh. Exhibitions, events, and programs seek to increase arts literacy and appreciation by engaging community and promoting forward thinking, socially responsive, and under-represented positions in contemporary practice.
Humanities New York is a public humanities organization with a 40-year history of creating, supporting, and sustaining civic dialogue and community engagement. Their Post-Incarceration Humanities Partnership Grant focused on serving individuals and families of those who are going through the process of societal reentry after a period of incarceration, as well as those working with issues of prison reform and/or abolition.
The Made in NY Women’s Film, TV & Theatre Fund by the City of New York Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment provides grants to encourage and support the creation of digital, film, music, television, and live or online theatre content that reflects the voices and perspectives of all who identify as women.
Alison Cornyn, Director, is an interdisciplinary artist whose work often focuses on the criminal justice system. Merging photography, media, and technology, she creates engaging environments, both online and as physical installations. She is a founding partner and the Creative Director of Picture Projects, a Brooklyn-based studio that produces in-depth new media projects about some of the most pressing social issues of our day, which it does through the investigation of complex stories from multiple perspectives. She has worked extensively on large-scale collaborative projects and is Creative Director of States of Incarceration and the Guantanamo Public Memory Project, at the Humanities Action Lab, the Prison Public Memory Project (co-founder), and Incorrigibles.
Her work has received numerous awards including a Peabody Award, the Gracie Allen Award for Women in Media, the Online News Association’s Award for Best Use of Multimedia, the Batten Award for Innovation, the National Press Club Award, and the Webby Award for net.art. Cornyn teaches at SVA’s Design for Social Innovation MA program and has previously taught at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program. Her works have been shown at public art and new media festivals including the Sundance Film Festival, Hot Docs, IDFA in Amsterdam, and the University of Michigan.