Beauty Behind Bars is an artist-led, entirely volunteer initiative that showcases visual art, writing, music, and other forms of creative expression by incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people. Founded in 2024 by public defenders and formerly incarcerated artists, Beauty Behind Bars in the past year curated four exhibits in the D.C. area, including two full-length installations at Studio Gallery and Rhizome D.C., showcasing visual art and poetry by nearly thirty creatives.

Beauty Behind Bars brings to light the creativity, imagination and resilience that shines through the prison industrial complex. Mass incarceration daily deprives incarcerated people, who are primarily Black and Brown, of their humanity, dignity, and individuality. Through displaying the vast talent that exists in and perseveres through the system, we hope to challenges biases and stereotypes about people in prison. We believe that people are far more than the worst thing they have ever done, and that everyone has the capacity for change and ability to contribute something positive to society.

We seek funds to both keep our project running and to compensate our artists. While formerly incarcerated artists in the community can sell their work directly at our events and during the exhibits, little opportunity exists for incarcerated artists to be compensated for their work. Further, people in prison barely earn wages for their work, earning mere cents an hour. Art supplies and stamps for mailing artwork are costly, and donations help our artists continue to create and get their work out. Additionally, as a purely volunteer-run project, we have been able to fund necessary materials for exhibits, such as frames and easels, thus far through generous donors.

70 percent of all donations go to our artists who are currently incarcerated. Funds are split evenly between all participants and sent quarterly through prison commissary accounts, where the funds can be used to purchase supplies and stamps. The other 30 percent goes to the project's curators to fund gallery or event rental space, display materials, photographers and videographers for events, and prison correspondence costs.

For more information on our project or inquiries, follow us on Instagram @beauty_behind_bars_ or email us at [email redacted].