Walls Turned Sideways is an art gallery, studio, and community space dedicated to artists and communities impacted by incarceration with a focus on collective liberation, healing, and abolition. The title of the space is based on a quote by Angela Davis, “walls turned sideways are bridges.”

Walls Turned Sideways was founded in January 2024 as a dedicated space for art and community engagement centered on the experiences of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals and their families.

It emerged from over a decade of organizing and teaching with the Prison + Neighborhood Arts/Education Project (PNAP), which taught classes at Stateville prison and hosted exhibitions in Chicago neighborhoods until the prison closed in 2013.

Our work is shaped by extensive research conducted in 2021 by Co-Directors and -Founders Pablo Mendoza and Sarah Ross, who interviewed incarcerated individuals, their families, and allied organizations about the possibility of an abolitionist art space in Chicago. This research highlighted a need for such a space whereby communities impacted by incarceration connect through art, share knowledge, and support returning residents. Walls Turned Sideways now fills that gap by providing exhibitions, workshops, and resources that use art as a means of advocacy, healing, and community-building.

The mission of Walls Turned Sideways is to build bridges that connect people in prison, their families, artists, and other community members using art, exhibitions, and political education with a focus on collective liberation, healing and abolition.

Since opening 2024, we have had the pleasure of hosting 34 Community Building events, 39 Community Care events, 26 Art events, and 23 Political Education events.

Community Care at WTS

Our Community-Care work creates a space for peer-led, trauma-informed healing, where returning residents and their families come together to share, learn, and grow from the impacts of incarceration, violence, and political disinvestment. Community Caree includes our Prison Trauma Healing Circles monthly restorative justice circles, led by those with lived experience. In these circles participants address the challenges of reentry while offering each other ongoing emotional and social support, while also exchanging knowledge and wisdom about the joys and challenges of reentry.

Community Building at WTS

Community Building is a crucial part of our work at Walls Turned Sideways, and we are invested in building community relationships with our neighbors in Garfield Park. A big part of this means making our space as accessible as possible to residents and community groups in the neighborhood who need a place for meetings or events. By offering space and staff time to support community-driven work, even when its focus is not on issues of criminalization and incarceration or art, we believe we can build stronger solidarity across communities and concerns.

Art at WTS

Our exhibitions invite the public to learn about freedom, care, accountability and struggles against criminalization and incarceration through thematic exhibitions, diverse voices and often untold perspectives. We collaborate with curators, artists, and cultural makers and feature work from currently and formerly incarcerated artists, as well as artists from the free world.

Our art studio is dedicated to creating graphics for social justice movements and developing advocacy tools that educate the public about critical issues affecting our lives. As art has always been at the forefront of social change, this work involves both celebrating important histories and challenging carceral systems.

Political Education at WTS

Our Political Education series centers on collective empowerment by building with communities impacted by incarceration and criminalization. Borrowing from restorative justice principles, we create a space that fosters dialogue, creates mutual understanding and accountability and tries to heal the systemic harms directed at particularly black, brown, gender non-conforming, differently abled, queer, formerly incarcerated, and poor communities. Political education, when practiced in solidarity, encourages us to activate our agency, view our personal experiences within a broader context of justice, and engage in everyday practices that promote liberation.

Support Walls Turned Sideways this giving season!

By Walls Turned Sideways

Support Walls Turned Sideways this giving season!

Help us keep our doors open and continue our work in Art and Exhibitions, Political Education, Community Care, and Community Building!