A night of spoken word and art chronicling the voices of re-entry and reform.
Join our Smart Justice Campaign on Friday, October 3, from 5 - 7 p.m. for an open-mic event hosted by Jesse "Analog" Bird, with poetry performances by incarcerated and justice-impacted individuals in partnership with Art Loop and Analog Bird.
This event will spotlight four featured artists:
- Dwayne Bim Staats, currently incarcerated [performance by friend]
- Hak R.A.W. (Radikal Annointed Wordsmith)
- Jarreau Ayers, currently incarcerated [performance by wife]
This event is free to attend. No registration required.
More About Project Return
“Project Return” is a multimedia project highlighting housing insecurity and other critical support gaps faced by recently released prisoners. Shot in and around Wilmington, Delaware, this project aims to expose the human toll of a system that stigmatizes, subjugates, and criminalizes predominantly poor Black and Brown Americans across the nation.
These portraits and interviews aim to individualize those impacted by the criminal justice system while revealing common themes of poverty, trauma, and a lack of support. Each individual featured was separated from their community and held for years, sometimes decades, in conditions never designed to address the circumstances that led to their imprisonment. While incarcerated, they were denied the tools and resources needed to heal and prepare for reentry. The portraits capture them as they are in their return—often optimistic, rarely bitter, stoically facing the odds stacked against them.
Viewers are invited to see each participant and to consider the systems that have shaped their lives: the social forces that breed inequality, the inhumane prisons that exacerbate poverty and trauma, and the endless barriers returning citizens face upon their release to a changed world.
