Opening of Abolition Film Society: Recess

is a circle of creative exchanges between systems-impacted young adults in Recess’s Assembly Fellowship program and 3 members of Life Line Creative Arts, a writing group inside Eastern Correctional Institution in Napanoch, New York.

Facilitator and artist Kriss Li shared reproductions of prior artworks by Assembly Fellows with Life-Line Creative Arts. In response, each incarcerated participant wrote a short screenplay inspired by the artworks, resulting in 3 screenplays. Communication with Life Line Creative Arts is facilitated with Archive-Based Creative Arts,the art program of Parole Preparation Project.

During the Session Residency, Li is working with Assembly Fellows to transform the 3 screenplays into a single short film, which creatively integrates some elements from all 3 screenplays. At the project closing on March 12, the film will be screened for the public and sent to members of Life-Line Creative Arts within the limitations of the Pr*son system. 

This is Volume 3 of the series Abolition Film Society, which shares films and filmmaking

with prisoners. At this Opening, Kriss Li will do a walkthrough of earlier works in the series. Volume 1, Li shared a program of short films curated from the collection of experimental film distributor Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Center  to incarcerated members of Prisoner Correspondence Project, a solidarity initiative for LGBTQ prisoners in the U.S. and Canada, within the limitations of the Pr*son system—sending screenshots and transcripts by mail and playing audio over the phone—and paid participants to write about the films that they experienced through partial, multimedia fragments. For Volume 2, Li worked with an incarcerated collaborator and Prisoner Correspondence Project inside member, Amber Kim, to conceptualize a 2-channel silent film and produced flipbooks of the film to mail into Pr*son.

In this gallery walk through, Li will shares documentation of their process, operating as creative pedagogy on corresponding with prisoners: introducing anticipated challenges and providing strategies for circumventing limitations.

Light Refreshments will be served.

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