Celly-Port: A Prison Cell on wheels

The Celly-Port is a traveling prison cell I am building inside of a trailer. Inside of the cell will be complete with statistics and information revealing the harsh realities of the prison industrial complex and stories from people who have been incarcerated and those who still are. The project aims to create changes within the justice system and prison industrial complex. This change will be created by the conversations had, by the understanding gained and by the documentation of stories and experiences of others who have been through the prison system and are now successful and those who have mad mistakes, never been through the system and are still successful. 

The project will also focus on how we can envision a new way of dealing with social issues that is not rooted in punishment and capital supremacy, but instead restorative justice, community growth, healing trauma and higher education. 

The more funding that is raised, the more exposure the instillation can have and the more change we can create quickly. 

The Big event kick off date will be held at the Ingenuity Cleveland warehouse at 5401 Hamilton Ave. Cleveland, Ohio 

Kick off event: Sunday July 24th 2:00-5:00 PM @ Ingenuity Cleveland

There will be several events, institutions and public spaces where the instillation will be on display at throughout the summer and fall. 

The heart of this project is to change the stigma around the incarcerated and those that are formerly incarcerated. I spent 6 1/2 years of my life in the juvenile and adult prison system and while I was there gained an understanding of what works to help people, and what does not. What I found is that healing and education are the most essential things needed to help someone grow, and unfortunately the current state of the prison industrial complex is still stuck on the punitive paradigm which only exacerbates trauma and thus keeps the cycle of incarceration going. From my experience as a prisoner, a student, an artist and a community organizer I understand that in order to change the culture around the justice system, the person system and the "street lifestyle" we must first change "the system" itself. 

While I was in prison I was blessed to be apart of the community center that we had. The community center was a thriving microcosm inside a world of oppression where we had the opportunity to find our passions, not be continually judged by our worst action, and gain hope that we could make our personal and collective future prosperous. 

I would love to see the community center model of incarceration be adopted throughout prisons in Ohio and the United States, in hopes that we can incarcerate less and less people and eventually our whole understanding of prison as a form of social safety has changed. In order to achieve this, we must understand how we got to where we are with the Prison Industrial Complex, understand its ramifications and understand how we can create a new system. 

My hopes is this project will invoke empathy and creativity and push the community towards taking action into rethinking and creating a new system of social safety.