Judy Chicago’s “The Dinner Party,” has long been in the permanent collection at Brooklyn Museum – the large triangular table that hosts place settings which commemorate 39 influential women throughout western history. The intricate settings reflect the style or social contribution of each woman, often in vulvar or butterfly forms.
This groundbreaking installation of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art is getting a contemporary update from some unlikely artists…a group of inmates from the Connecticut Correctional Institute.
The group calls themselves the “Women of York,” and have created their own Dinner Party-inspired place settings in an exhibit titled “Shared Dining.” The settings are created from the limited materials they had available to them from painted styrofoam cups to a dagger carved out of soap from the prison commissary. The title references the mess hall that the women used to assemble the installation, which also serves as a refuge during their incarceration.
The concept for Shared Dining occurred after Sackler visited the prison for what was intended to be a one-day art workshop in 2013. An advocate for prison reform, Sackler quickly realized the transformative power that art had on the inmates and collaborated with them on a full scale installation (which they submitted to Prison Arts Program, an organization that annually hosts exhibitions of inmates work throughout Connecticut).
Inmate art has been gaining popularity lately with exhibits in cities ranging from Columbus, OH to San Diego, CA. New York currently is also showcasing prison-made art on Governors Island in a show titled “Escaping Time: Art From U.S. Prisons.”
Shared Dining is currently on view in a gallery adjacent to “The Dinner Party” at the Brooklyn Museum, where it will be shown through Sept. 13.
To get more involved with arts programming in the prison system, check out The Prison Arts Coalition or SafeStreets.Org.
