Join the Department of Art’s 2023-24 Christian A. Johnson Artist-in-Residence Jackie Sumell for lunch and a conversation about her Solitary Gardens project and other current work.

Jackie Sumell is a prison abolitionist and multidisciplinary artist inspired by the lives of everyday people, working at the forefront of the public campaign to end isolation in the United States, inviting us to imagine a landscape without prisons. She has spent the past two decades working directly with incarcerated folx, most notably her elders Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox. Her work, anchored at the intersection of art, education, permaculture and social practice has been exhibited extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe. She has been the recipient of multiple residencies and fellowships including a 2021 Art Matters Fellowship, 2020 Art 4 Justice Fellowship, S.O.U.R.C.E. Fellowship, 2020 Creative Capital Grant, A Blade of Grass Fellowship, MSU’s Critical Race Studies Fellowship, Robert Rauschenberg Artist-as-Activist Fellowship, Soros Justice Fellowship, Eyebeam Project Fellowship and a Schloss Solitude Residency Fellowship. She received a BS from the College of Charleston, and MFA from Stanford University.