How do we create an infrastructure for forgiveness?
The latest episode of The Side Woo with artist Amy M. Ho
This week on my podcast The Side Woo I talk with Amy M. Ho, an artist that I first met in the Bay Area when I was a co-director of the artist-run space Royal Nonesuch Gallery. Amy’s project Spaces From Yesterday was a collaboration with the formerly incarcerated artist named Dennis Crookes who she met through an initiative to get art into prisons. She worked for a number of years at San Quentin Correctional Facility as an art teacher.
As she says in our conversation, she was struck by the storytelling the incarcerated people did, and wanted to help bring their memories to life in some way.
“I would hear all these stories and I would realize based on the content, that some of the stories were from decades ago. They were basically telling me about something they did, as if it happened yesterday. The places would be so vivid. I just sort of realized like, wow, they tell and retell these stories over and over again to keep these places alive in their minds. I work with place in my practice, so it became very logical that I was like imagining these places and then wanting to create them as installations. But because they weren't my stories, there's no way I would've done it without collaborating and working with them.”
Five years after I met her, Amy’s father was tragically killed during a mugging in downtown Oakland. Despite this fact, and perhaps because of her time working with incarcerated populations, Amy explains that she is steadfast in wanting restorative justice for people who have committed crimes - even violent ones like the one who killed her father.
I had never heard the term restorative justice before talking with Amy, but I was blown away at the level of empathy she showed for the alleged perpetrator’s family. She spoke about her concern for his family and the generational impact incarceration has on people.
The point she arrives at is that we need to find a way to build greater healing into the justice system. And with that, we are essentially talking about how to create an infrastructure that relies on forgiveness and personal growth, rather than punishment to affect change in people’s hearts and minds.
This is a radical idea and one that is hard to execute on a personal level much less an institutional one. Can you think of the last time someone in your life really pissed you off or seriously wronged you?
On the most petty level possible, I’m thinking right now of a frustrating email I received this morning. And yes I definitely wanted to kick their butt, or more specifically, write them a passive-aggressive response after reading it. But what is to be gained from lashing out and responding in a retaliatory way?
Similarly, the initial feeling of revenge or punitive justice might be satisfying at first, but then what? It’s a vicious cycle that results in people feeling shame and making themselves smaller rather than coming to a place of mutual understanding. Scaling this behavior up at a national level does not result in a different outcome. It only seems to hurt more people along the way and cause a ripple effect that disproportionately affects those that are disadvantaged within the current American justice system.
Since this is a newsletter about art and creativity, what does this have to do with any of it? For me, finding and presenting alternative modes of being in the world is one of the roles, and one of the strengths, of the artist. This is something that Amy does with her work, and what I aspire to with mine.
As artists, we can use our creative and storytelling skills to help others envision a world where better things are possible. The artist's life makes space for other modes of questioning society. We are already on the fringes of society thanks to our various life choices and inability to fit into existing social structures. We are the freaks and geeks, the gender non-conforming, the anti-capitalists, the witches and warlocks.
Being on the outside gives you the freedom to create something new for yourself and pave the way for others. Let’s make it count.