"Il Magnum Nisi Bonum," Addison Barr
“On the other hand—while I certainly cannot ignore hopelessness as a concrete entity, nor turn a blind eye to the historical, economic, and social reasons that explain that hopelessness—I do not understand human existence, and the struggle needed to improve it, apart from hope and dream. Hope is an ontological need. Hopelessness is but hope that has lost its bearings, and become a distortion of that ontological need.”
–Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Hope (1992)
“The function of art is to do more than tell it like it is — it’s to imagine what is possible.”
–bell hooks, Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations (2012)
“My personal growth as an artist has shifted the way I view everything around me. I see beauty and color in every living and non-living thing around me. I wanted people to see me in my art, my happiness, my sadness, my love as well as my shortcomings. Each time my thoughts are captured on canvas, they become my voice to the world around me that I am here.”
–Fredrick Brown, Artist Statement (2025)
Welcome to the 30th Annual Exhibition of Artists in Michigan Prisons! This exhibition is the culmination of a year of collaboration among Prison Creative Arts Project staff and faculty, students, Michigan Department of Corrections and federal Bureau of Prisons staff, formerly incarcerated artists, and artists who are still incarcerated. We proudly present 872 original artworks created in prison by 613 artists. This year also marks three decades of PCAP’s Annual Exhibition. The exhibition has grown substantially since its founding and has helped to foster a robust culture of art inside Michigan prisons.
Thank you to all those who contributed to this exhibition. We are especially grateful to the incarcerated artists who entrusted us with their art and allowed us to bring it into the free world. They model for us the radical practices of hope and visioning–imagining new possibilities, transformation, and resistance, even amidst the conditions of confinement.