Seeing through stone brings together artwork by contemporary artists from around the globe whose work engages prisons, justice and freedom. Moving beyond exhibitions that are about prisons and instead oriented towards artists who help provide a vision—and a model—of abolition in practice, Seeing through stone highlights global networks of care and abolitionist world-building.

Bringing together artwork by over 80 artists and collectives including 16 new commissions, Seeing through stone features works which reflect the global scope of carceral conditions and the movements resisting prisons world-wide. With reference to poet Etheridge Knight’s evocation of those who have “the secret eyes”—Seeing through stone highlights the works of artists, including those who are formerly and currently incarcerated, that offer a vision beyond carceral systems, drawing out the flourishing collective story and alternative imagining currently underway in creating a future free of prisons.

This is the largest, multi-sited exhibition to-date co-organized with Institute of the Arts and Sciences at University of California, Santa Cruz as part of the ongoing Visualizing abolition series.

Artists include Frank Alejandrez, Rebecca Belmore, Reginald BoClair, Imani Jaqueline Brown, Sharon Daniel, Caleb Duarte and Barrios Unidos, Cian Dayrit, Explode! collective, Frente 3 de fevereiro, Charles Gaines, Guillermo Galindo, Maria Gaspar, Amber Ginsburg and Aaron Hughes, Gabriela Golder, Patricia Gómez and Maria Jesús González Fernández, Shilpa Gupta, Ashley Hunt, Steffani Jemison, Mariame Kaba and Rachel Wallis, Sofia Karim, Bouchra Khalili, Robert King, Mulheres Possíveis, Carlos Motta, Gabriela Mureb, Huong Ngô, Sharon Daniel, O grupo inteiro, Samora Pinderhughes, Sherrill Roland, Sable Elyse Smith, jackie sumell, Hajra Waheed, Levester Williams, Timothy James Young, among others.