Shared Dining installed at the Brooklyn Museum, 2015
In parallel, we met with two women released from York who were part of the original project, Kelly and Lisette. They continued to feel connected to Shared Dining as a collective statement of their capacity for empathy, reflection and creativity. They wanted us to include their stories with the other Women of York.
The audio recordings and transcriptions share the stories of the Women of York, now an integral part of Shared Dining at the Brooklyn Museum. Visitors to the installation can select a photographic image of a plate and runner, and listen to each woman tell her story in her own words.
Their voices lift identity out of anonymity, and bring a powerful presence to their absence.
- Catherine Muther & Susan Meiselas
Shared Dining installed at the Brooklyn Museum, 2015
Shared Dining installed at the Brooklyn Museum, 2015
Many women find healing through prison arts. Through creative mediums we restore our spirits and make sense of our lives. Art is an active and visible way to reflect on our lives and to express those reflections. For us, art is a sanctuary; it is salvation. What we cannot have, we substitute with what we can create. Suddenly our ideas are reality. Art can be a means by which a woman can sculpt her future. She can cut away a past trauma, or paste up a past hurt. She can paint a voice or collage the chaos she chooses to leave behind. All of this is possible with art. Art enables us to transcend these walls with or without anyone’s permission.
This work shows a very different side of us, a very vulnerable side. We are offering this part of ourselves as it is something that people would not otherwise see. To many, we are crimes. We are numbers. We are stigmatized people. Something that took minutes in the course of our lives determines our lives now, and always.
- The Women of York, Shared Dining, 2015
Shared Dining installed at the Brooklyn Museum, 2015
People do not acknowledge that we are subject to change, just as all human beings change over time, through learning and experiencing different things in life. We are not that split-second act. Behind these walls we are you, we are human: we feel, we cry, we laugh, we hurt, we enjoy things, we think, we try to become better. When our mothers come to see us in prison, they come to see their daughters. Our sisters come to see their sisters—not criminals. The injuries that we sustain while in prison are often more severe than the hurts that led us to prison in the first place.
We strive to rise above public perception. We aim to prove that we are not what people think we are. We are not our mistakes. Despite our flaws, we aspire to show the beauty that so many people refuse to see.
In this dark place we still find beauty in everything—even ourselves.
- The Women of York, Shared Dining, 2015