The Moreau College Initiative, a collaborative effort between the University of Notre Dame and Holy Cross College, will present “Reframing Incarceration: Selected Work from Westville Correctional Facility” from April 1 to May 17 at the Notre Dame Center for Arts and Culture in South Bend.
The exhibit, including a public reception from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. April 26 (Friday), will feature artwork by college students at Westville Correctional Facility, a medium-security prison in Westville, Indiana, about 45 miles west of Notre Dame in LaPorte County.
Under the direction of Rev. Martin Nguyen, C.S.C., associate professor of painting and drawing at Notre Dame; Maria Tomasula, Michael P. Grace Professor of Painting at Notre Dame; Thom Andreae, adjunct professor of design at Holy Cross; and Zachary Norman, a multidisciplinary artist and educator who currently teaches at the University of Utah, the students studied photography, two-dimensional design, watercolor and painting as a way of exploring identity and incarceration through art.
Some of the works will be available for purchase during the exhibit, with proceeds benefiting the Moreau College Initiative.
“The visual arts provide a means of exploring challenging ideas and topics through visualization,” said Norman, the show’s curator. “Many of these ideas are challenging simply because they’re invisible. How do we discuss that which we cannot see? The works included in ‘Reframing Incarceration’ give visible form to ideas such as abstraction, representation, memory, identity and personhood. Furthermore, the exhibition provides a forum within which incarcerated students can make visible their unique perspectives to members of the greater community and beyond.”
Norman was a teaching scholar of photography at Notre Dame before joining the faculty at Utah. He was recently selected as a 2019 artist-in-residence at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art.
The Moreau College Initiative is a rigorous liberal arts program co-sponsored by Holy Cross and Notre Dame in collaboration with the Indiana Department of Correction. Enrolled students are eligible to earn associate and bachelor of arts degrees through Holy Cross.
For more information, visit www.hcc-nd.edu/moreau-college-initiative.
Contact: Erin Blasko, assistant director of media relations, 574-631-4127, eblasko@nd.edu