On June 13, The Judith Center partners with the nonprofit organization Just Detention International (JDI) to present an exhibition featuring nearly one hundred works by individuals who have experienced trauma behind bars, including those who have been subjected to sexual abuse while incarcerated. The exhibition foregrounds personal testimony and creative expression, bringing visibility to voices that are too often excluded from public and cultural discourse. Founded in 1980, Just Detention International is a health and human rights organization dedicated to ending sexual abuse in all forms of detention. JDI is the only organization in the United States—and globally—focused exclusively on addressing sexual abuse behind bars. Its work includes holding government officials accountable for prisoner rape, challenging the cultural and institutional conditions that allow sexual violence to persist, and ensuring that survivors have access to the support and resources they need.

Presented on the occasion of the opening of From the Inside—an exhibition organized by The Judith Center in collaboration with Just Detention International (JDI)—Trauma by Design: The Culture of Abuse Inside Prisons is a panel discussion that will feature three formerly incarcerated advocates, including a survivor of sexual abuse in detention and a former warden who has pioneered healing services for incarcerated people. Panelists will offer their insights into life in prison, the conditions that lead to gender-based violence, and the powerful ways that art can support healing behind bars.

The Judith Center Book Club Session 04 will focus on Sylvère Lotringer’s Mad Like Artaud (2015) as part of a larger foray into considering how the idea of “madness” is weaponized by authoritarian powers to control and silo subjugated groups.

According to the University of Minnesota Press, Lotringer explores the life of French dramatist, poet, actor, and theorist Antonin Artaud, whose “madness, like the plague, is contagious, and everyone, from his psychiatrists to his disciples, family, and critics, everyone who gets close to Artaud, seems to participate in his delirium. Sylvère Lotringer explores various embodiments of this shared delirium through what Artaud called ‘mental dramas’—a series of confrontations with his witnesses or ‘persecutors’ where we uncover the raw delirium at work, even in Lotringer himself.”

Using the author’s interview-focused publication as a point of departure, we will investigate “madness” as a relational dynamic, and the ways it is used as a politic of defiance to systems of order. This reading will serve as a primer for more nuanced conversations about the artworks and narratives featured in our upcoming exhibition, From the Inside: Presented by Just Detention International, featuring contributions from nearly one hundred individuals who have experienced trauma behind bars, including those who have been subjected to sexual abuse while incarcerated. To enrich our conversation, participants are also encouraged to read Susan Sontag’s “Approaching Artaud,” published in The New Yorker in 1973.

Find more information on the event, where to source the book, and how to register if you are a first-time book club participant here.

The second installment of POETRY X___, will be an in-person writing workshop centering a prompt inspired by From the Inside, a collaborative exhibition organized by The Judith Center and Just Detention International featuring nearly one hundred works by individuals who have experienced trauma behind bars, including those who have been subjected to sexual abuse while incarcerated. Inviting participants to draft poetry in dialogue with the artwork on view, the workshop will be followed by readings of poetry developed during the event.

Founded in 1980, Just Detention International is a health and human rights organization dedicated to ending sexual abuse in all forms of detention. JDI is the only organization in the United States—and globally—focused exclusively on addressing sexual abuse behind bars. Its work includes holding government officials accountable for prisoner rape, challenging the cultural and institutional conditions that allow sexual violence to persist, and ensuring that survivors have access to the support and resources they need.