Logan Center Exhibitions: ‘Makes Me Wanna Holla’ puts injustices of carceral system on display

New exhibition showcases art, voices and faces of those behind prison walls

Visitors at the opening reception for “Makes Me Wanna Holla” at UChicago’s Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts on July 7. Photo: Sarah Elizabeth Larson

This story by Tori Lee was originally published by UChicago News on July 28, 2023. Click here to read the full story.

“C/O! / I need a med-tech / I can’t taste or smell,” Jimmie Moody’s poem starts with a plea. “Yelled throughout the cellhouse / But nobody coming.”

Moody’s “Untitled,” one of many pieces brought together by curator Michelle Daniel Jones, is currently on display in the art exhibition “Makes Me Wanna Holla: Art, Death & Imprisonment.”

Open through Sept. 10 at the Logan Center for the Arts, the exhibition explores the injustices of the carceral system through the voices and art of those who have experienced them firsthand.

The exhibition culminates a yearlong “Artist for the People” Practitioner fellowship for Daniel Jones and artist Dorothy Burge, co-hosted by UChicago’s Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture (CSRPC) and the Pozen Center Human Rights Lab.

“This fellowship is centered on artists whose work engages with the carceral system,” said Alice Kim, director of the Beyond Prisons Project at CSRPC. “The work of Michelle and Mama Dorothy is so powerful because it's lifting up and making visible who is behind the prison wall.”

Walking into the space, visitors find themselves among Burge’s colorful series of quilted portraits—titled “Won't You Help to Sing These Songs of Freedom?”—depicting incarcerated survivors of Chicago police torture and other stories of resilience.

Daniel Jones, with activist group Mourning Our Losses, curated a traveling memorial of over 60 pieces of visual art, poetry, music and oral history interviews. “We Shall Remember” features current and formerly incarcerated artists speaking to the horrors of the COVID-19 pandemic while honoring those lives lost behind bars.

“I think the end result is just so intense and powerful to see all the different voices, different perspectives,” said Tracye Matthews, CSRPC’s executive director.