PRISM Initiative

Prism: Seeing Beyond Mass Incarceration emerges from Cleveland Public Library’s legacy of supporting democracy and addressing inequalities in the city of Cleveland while remaining a trusted resource for learning, joy and creativity. Under the leadership of Executive Director & CEO, Felton Thomas, Jr., CPL has been intentional about its evolving role to fulfill the civic and social needs of its community, partnering with local organizations to provide expungement clinics, legal services, workforce development support, re-entry resources and more.

Libraries, like all institutions, are not neutral. They inevitably hold a prism to knowledge, ideas, values, access and more. This initiative asks:

• How can public art frame critical dialogues and catalyze the transformation of library patrons, its community, and the Library itself?
• At a moment when the gaps and inequities facing Cleveland communities and society loom large, how does a library determine its role and focus on the broader ecosystems of justice and care?
• What does it look like to balance urgent issues, such as book bans and rapidly declining literacy rates, with the need to end longstanding ills including and resulting from mass incarceration?

To identify answers to these and other significant societal questions, we turn to some of the most imaginative thinkers in our world – authors and artists. Whether its Maya Lin’s “Reading A Garden” in its Main Library’s Eastman Reading Garden or the traveling shows featuring Yinka Shonibare’s “The American Library” and Nicole R. Fleetwood’s “Prison Nation,” Cleveland Public Library has repeatedly looked to artists to help communicate the values of the Library and its patrons, to invite beauty and play into public space, and to create dialogue around pressing social issues and experiences of marginalization. Authors, including Angela Davis, Nikki Giovanni and Reginald Dwayne Betts have lent their progressive thoughts and unique perspectives to CPL programs. For the PRISM initiative, Cleveland Public Library once again seeks to engage artists to create compelling artworks that will enhance public space. These artworks, and PRISM’s associated programming, will orient viewers toward a reality where mass incarceration, along with the practices, philosophies, and portrayals that created it, become distant relics.