Alumna Patrice Renee Washington ‘14 in Group Exhibition ‘Barring Freedom’

By
Brittany Nguyen
December 01, 2020
Chains hanging from the ceiling of a narrow room with a window

Alumna Patrice Renee Washington ’14 is in the group exhibition Barring Freedom at the San José Museum of Art.

Curated by Rachel Nelson and Alexandra Moore, Barring Freedom utilizes art to engage viewers in ways that allowed them to see the dynamics of racism. The exhibition, co-organized with UC Santa Cruz Institute of Arts and Sciences, features works by twenty US-based artists that challenge how each artist views and understands our nation’s prison industrial complex. The artists are predominantly Black or Brown and from poor communities. The group explores the troubled history of mass incarceration, policing, surveillance, detention, and more. The works are inspired by the teachings of noted prison abolitionist and scholar Dr. Angela Y. Davis. 

Barring Freedom considers the strategies artists use to reveal this racist worldview and the social problems that it effectively creates and obscures. It also highlights alternative visions and future dreamscapes offered by these artists as a counter to the brutalities of our current reality,” according to the museum’s website. “The exhibition underscores the urgency and importance of arts in envisioning a world beyond racist policing, biased courts, and overflowing prisons.”

Though the exhibition was conceptualized before the current crises, first the COVID-19 outbreak, then the brutal onslaught of police killings of Black people in the US, both have brought into sharp relief the horrific consequences of mass incarceration. '

Through the use of objects and cultural signifiers, Washington explores how identity can be manipulated and shaped to explore alternative understandings. Working primarily in sculpture and ceramics, her work investigates structures of race, class, and gender as they relate to the construction of identity and experience. 

As part of the exhibition, the Museum is featuring a multitude of related programming, all available to join online. There is also a Barring Freedom website that acts as a digital extension of the exhibition, designed to deepen student and public engagement with the themes raised in the exhibition. 

Barring Freedom opened on October 30, 2020 and runs through April 25, 2021. SJMA is temporarily closed at this time following City and County guidelines that are constantly evolving. Visitors can check back for updates. After the showing at SJMA, the exhibition will travel to John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.