The Writing on The Wall is a shape-shifting, pop-up art installation made from writings, drawings and notes by people in prison around the world, a partnership between Incarceration Nations Network and the acclaimed African-American visual artist Hank Willis Thomas. In an effort to center the words of those directly impacted at the heart of the fight for prison reimagining, the installation has since 2013 been displayed in public spaces as a form of verbal and visual intrusion. Each debut of The Writing on the Wall is an event and ongoing campaign, coordinated in collaboration with INN global partners and demanding that we collectively heed The Writing on the Wall: investing in communities and people is the real road to safety and peace.
In myriad formats – as a pop-up in enclosed spaces, a collapsible booth, a video preview in movie theaters, a series of light projections born during the Covid-19 pandemic, and an LED-screen mobile truck—The Writing on the Wall has been exhibited in: Detroit; New Orleans; Philadelphia; Miami; Washington DC; Columbus; Boise; Indianapolis; Santa Cruz; Nairobi, Kenya; Mexico City, Mexico; Santiago, Chile; and Santiago, Dominican Republic. In New York City it debuted for eight days on the High Line park, the most trafficked public park in the world.
For more information and to read some of the writings, visit TWOTW.org.
