In 2024, Oaxacan artists Cesar Chavez & Yescka invited me to join them and create a series of workshops inside Centro de Internamiento Femenil de Tanivet, Direccion de Ejecucion de Medidas for teenagers and Reculsario Estatal de Etla, 3 prisons holding women, teens and men.
We convinced the warden at all three prisons to allow us to bring in huge bundles of flowers. We talked about how much care is required for flowers to bloom and the reciprocity of caring for plants and each other. At each prison, the creative exercise was a little different but overall it was an invitation to connect with the memories of the flowers, the flowers as an artifact of care snuck in to love on them, the symbolic transformational story of ourselves when we play with the flower as a form and guide.
At Centro de Internamiento Femenil de Tanivet, we talked about community, healing and mothering. Mom’s at Tanivet have their children with them, and then of course the other women jump in as aunties and grandma’s. The women imagined themselves growing like flowers:
What does this flower need to thrive? What must she hear? What wound is she healing from and what affirmation must she keep close to her heart to believe in her true power? When this flower blooms, what perspective on prison does she share with the world so that we can grow toward support instead of punishment? From these prompts, the women created textiles expressing their ideas.
At Direccion de Ejecucion de Medidas for teenagers, our workshop included every incarcerated youth in the state of Oaxaca minus the 3 in orientation; 24 young people. Oregon has a similar population, 550 youth are locked up. We used guided meditation to go on a journey. We made the room quiet and everyone closed their eyes.
Today we are going on a journey to one of your favorite places, a place where you feel free. This can be an imaginary place or somewhere real. First, you will pack your bag. What will you bring? What will you want to have for a snack on the way? Remember to bring your toothbrush. After you are done packing, call two people who you’d like to meet you there. Yes, they can be loved ones who have passed or someone who you have always wanted to meet. You are the boss of this journey. Now we will start traveling, think about what you are most excited about. How will it smell when you arrive? What is the weather? Is there something you are looking forward to eating or drinking? Imagine all of it. As you arrive, look around. What do you notice? Who is there? How does it feel? Describe this moment of beauty and freedom.
Once everyone went on their journey and noticed every detail of the trip, they opened their eyes and we invited them to use the flowers and markers to create a post card to send from their destination. They made pieces reporting from family farms, outer space, their favorite swimming hole, a place where everyone believes in them. Each young person kept their postcard as a reminder that at any moment, they can use their imagination as a tool for liberation.
The energy at Reculsario Estatal de Etla fills the maze of corrugated steel, cement and chain link fences with activity in every nook imaginable. There is soccer, sewing, cooking and wood-working. Vintage trucks on cinderblocks are being detailed, hammocks and purses are being woven and on the patch of earth between the prison wall and the outer-wall covered in razor wire, there’s a garden growing corn with chickens laying eggs. The men at Etla are busy and between the plume of woodworking dust and the cement soccer court, there’s an art studio filled with a half dozen men with dedicated art practices. They are skilled printmakers, painters and sculptors and they were ready to talk about art and abolition. At Etla, the group was eager to share about how the creative process sustained their spirit while incarcerated and how the chance to create using the flowers felt like a portal to the outside. Cyanotype chemicals can be hard to find in Oaxaca and definitely not available in prison, so the men used the opportunity to experiment with material using found items from around the prison. Definitely some tail feathers made their way into the art.
