Mass Incarceration Quilt Series

Jesse Krimes

The Mass Incarceration Quilt Series focuses on rendering visible people and perspectives hidden by the criminal legal system. Using participatory art practices that traverse both prison bars and the urban and rural divide, the series will represent the national scale of incarceration through an accumulation of individuated quilt squares and larger textiles. The works will integrate old clothing collected from directly impacted people and their families, invoking the body and presence of those millions who have been “disappeared” by the criminal punishment system.

Krimes’s project will culminate in the exhibition Corrections at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from October 28, 2024 to July 13, 2025 and the solo exhibition Cells at Jack Shainman Gallery from November 2–December 21, 2024.

Jesse at work